Schnapszahl

Schnapszahl: That's how Germans call a number that is composed by a sequence of the same digit

literally: “booze number” / a number composed by a sequence of the same digit

You know why Schnapszahl is something like the perfect German word? Because it combines two of Germans’ greatest passions: the passion for booze—and the passion for order.

The term refers to a number that consists of various instances of the same digit, like 11, 555 and 7777. And of course, the infamous “number of the beast” is a Schnapszahl as well. The magic of Schnapszahlen has also led to crowded registry offices everywhere in the world on dates like 9/9/99 or 11/11/11. Maybe that is because women want to make it easier for their idiot husbands to remember their anniversary.

The reason why such a number is called a “booze number” is probably linked to some dice games where a player who throws a double has to pay the next round. It might also have to do with the “double vision” phenomenon that you experience after your eleventh Jägermeister.

References:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schnapszahl

 

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