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Since English is read and written left-to-right, it seems like it'd be more intuitive to do it the other way.

How is it more intuitive to write 3-20 when you mean twenty-three?

You would say 3 and twenty, and doesn't french say its numbers that way?

"when you mean"??? This is just how you grew up, it has no bearing what what is more or less intuitive.

French: vingt trois (twenty three) German: drei und zwanzig (three and twenty)

I thought it was french that did something like "three twenties and a ten" for seventy? Am I thinking of some other language?

That's true enough (93 = "quatre-vingt-dix trois" = "four twenties and three"), but it's still the case that the more significant digit is listed first - it's just composed by multiplying.

For the record, 93 is quatre-vingt-treize ("four twenties and thirteen")

the Swiss French dialect has a far nicer system - they say neufant trois, this is fairly colloquial though.

English: Sing a song of sixpence a pocket full of rye, Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.

The quoted portion to which I responded specifically referred to English.

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