Meeting place

Today I went to look at old Soviet propaganda posters at the State Library. Was quite fun and a relief from reading through long reports. A cheerful old lady took me up to view them who told me she had been learning English for years but couldn’t understand the phrase “dressed up to the nines” (or just “the nine” as she put it). 

“Why not ten?!” She asked me.

 Why is there a plural of the number one in Russian?—I thought. 

“No idea”, I replied. 

This seemed to be the right answer though because she was very please to find out I didn’t know either.