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I'm Canadian and I'm assuming it's the same as Brits: We start counting with our thumb but if we represent a number less than 5 without counting then we do not use our thumb. That's why it doesn't contradict what happened in Inglourious Basterds.

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English here, and yes counting starts with the thumb but going direct to two or three is just fingers. Middle three for three, not pinky and the next two or the shocker. This isn't universal, but in my experience by far the most common way.

Our spoken and written language is a mess of inconsistencies, why shouldn't our numeracy be!

Canuck here too, I grew up starting with index but I see lots of thumb starters.

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