Questions relating to the use of numbers or numerals in speaking or writing English.
2
votes
2answers
999 views
“A hundred percent” vs. “hundred percent”
Which sentence is grammatically correct:
I'm a hundred percent sure
I'm hundred percent sure
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
3
votes
2answers
382 views
Is it proper to use ordinal suffixes on fractions?
I know in more formal writing, spelling out fractions is preferred (e.g. two-thirds), and in math no suffix is used, but I frequently see ordinal suffixes being used on fractions (e.g. 2/3rds), even ...
0
votes
4answers
5k views
How to say the total amount?
I'm not sure if the saying of the total amount USD 23,428.32 is correct below (esp. the 'cent' part after the dot):
Say U.S. dollars twenty-three thousand four hundred and twenty-eight and ...
3
votes
3answers
244 views
How to write numbers one after the other in different context
Sorry if the title is poor. I am having a hard time thinking of a good title.
If I wanted to say something like:
"We will have 5 two-hour sessions".
Is there a proper way of listing this?
"Five ...
6
votes
5answers
3k views
Why are Roman numerals still used?
Why are Roman numerals still used today primarily on clocks and film titles?
5
votes
3answers
2k views
Why is 1 hand-written without a serif and 7 without a dash? [closed]
I've noticed that people coming from a English-speaking countries tend to write "1" without the upstroke and "7" without a dash:
which differs from the way the numbers are usually written in ...
3
votes
2answers
2k views
Reading out decimal numbers in English [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
How to write decimal values in words
How do you read numbers like these?
0.12 "oh point twelve", "zero point one two", "zero and twelve hundreds"
And these ones?
...
3
votes
3answers
431 views
Is there a prefix for “infinite”?
I was looking for a prefix I could prepend to a word to mean an infinite amount of the thing the word describes. I eventually found someone with the same question, and since there were no answers, I ...
11
votes
1answer
412 views
Fractions as phrasal (compound) adjectives
Is there a difference between a written-out fraction that serves as a noun:
He gave me one half of his sandwich.
and a written-out fraction serving as an adjective:
I gave her a one-half ...
4
votes
4answers
1k views
How to write decimal values in words
I have 1210.802 units in a mutual fund. How do I write it in words?
"One thousand two hundred and ten..." How do I write the decimal units here?
3
votes
4answers
565 views
Writing large percentages
So, I have a reason to display percentages in the thousands and greater
1000%, 20000%, etc
should they be written with or without thousand separators?
1,000%, 20,000%, etc
I have been Googling and ...
2
votes
4answers
3k views
A few more “hundred” vs “hundreds”
If we're talking about 8 hundred (an exact number of hundreds) we use the singular for the ordinal. But what if we use an unspecified quantity such as "more". Or, I just said it: "number of hundreds". ...
4
votes
4answers
317 views
36 thousands or 36 thousand?
I'm almost sure it's 36 thousands, since we're talking about 36 not 1. But I'm in doubt because 36 already indicates that it's more than 1, so maybe, just maybe, it could be 36 thousand?
0
votes
1answer
1k views
Usage of “second/third/fourth … last”
In German there is a pattern for counting items from the end of a list. The last item is "das letzte", the one before is "das vorletzte", the one before that is "das vorvorletzte" and for each other ...
27
votes
6answers
4k views
How can I write out 1.5?
I would like to write out (1.5) in words and also (5.0).
How would I do that?
15
votes
3answers
597 views
Billion and other large numbers
Traditionally a billion in American English means 109 (1,000,000,000, a thousand million) while in British English it means 1012 (a million million) with milliard meaning 109.
Is this still the case ...
2
votes
3answers
836 views
Is it correct to omit number suffix on dates?
If I have a date written: Saturday 16 December is it correct ?
Or does the grammar oblige me to add the number suffix to 16 making 16th as in: Saturday 16th December ?
16
votes
5answers
880 views
Why is the unit of measure placed before the value for currencies? Are there other measures where the unit precedes value?
$1,000 is pronounced as "one thousand dollars".
Reading from left to right, it seems like it would make more sense to write the value as:
1,000$. This way the pronunciation of the value follows the ...
12
votes
0answers
388 views
How can I properly ask this question? [duplicate]
I want to ask a question so that I can get the answer which gives the position of the President. So the answer I want to get is:
Barack Hussein Obama is the 44th President of the United States.
...
11
votes
4answers
981 views
Reading out numbers in English
What are the accepted guidelines for reading out numbers in English?
For example, should 1351 be read out as "one thousand and three hundred and fifty one", or should the "and"s be removed ...
1
vote
3answers
384 views
What is the formal way of expressing 1990s?
How do you express the last decade of 20th century in formal written English? "1990s"? If the century is known from the context, can you simply say "the nineties"?
As in: "The involvement of US in ...
1
vote
1answer
503 views
What is an appropriate word for a third-tier item (primary, secondary, …)? [closed]
If a first-tier item is called primary, and a second-tier item is called secondary, what can third, and greater, -tier items be called?
13
votes
5answers
2k views
Why does the gorilla weigh exactly 800 pounds? [closed]
It is common in American English to refer to a powerful person or organization as an 800 pound gorilla. The expression makes sense -- a gorilla of that size would certainly be intimidating -- but ...
2
votes
3answers
2k views
Should it be “mid 80s” or “mid-80s”?
When discussing temperatures or decades, should it be hyphenated?
I understood that two-word adjectives need to be hyphenated, but why does MS Word think this should be, too?
0
votes
1answer
58 views
Can a number be given the attribute 'physical'?
This question initially arose while translating a technical document from German. The original text was 'physikalische Heizzonenummer', literally 'physical heating-zone-number'.
My immediate reaction ...
24
votes
1answer
887 views
What are these symbols called in the English language?
You see these all the time in movies, usually when some poor guy has been wrongly imprisoned and begins counting the days since his incarceration, but what are these markings called? I used to know, ...
17
votes
2answers
828 views
Plurality of numbers between -1 and 1
If I recall correctly, the Académie française states that, for French, quantities comprised within [-1,1] are singular, and anything else is plural. This means, for instance, that we should say (in ...
2
votes
3answers
242 views
What is the practice of pricing goods at numbers such as 3.95, 69.90, 198 called? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
What is the term for pricing items just below a significant value (e.g. $19,995)
It is common on price tags to use $3.95 instead of $4.00 to make items appear cheaper. ...
1
vote
2answers
1k views
Correct way to write a range of dollar figures
What is the best way to express the range from $4.5 billion to $5.2 billion?
Is the following correct?
... between $4.5 and $5.2 billion...
5
votes
4answers
3k views
How to use “tens of” and “hundreds of”?
If I'm not mistaken, tens of means 10 to 99 and hundreds of means 100 to 999. Is this correct? I found in some dictionaries that tens of is actually not correct.
I also found that hundreds of could ...
1
vote
4answers
208 views
How to label a digit according to its position in a number
Let's say there is some number like 12345. In Konglish (Korean English), I can label 3 as the hundred's position number and 5 as the one's position number. I don't think this is correct English. How ...
3
votes
3answers
418 views
Why is there a “one” before “hundred”, “thousand”, etc. but not “ten”?
As the title says, why is there a "one" before "hundred", before "thousand", and so on, but not before "ten"?
This seems shared between some languages, including Chinese (10 = 十 = ten, 100 = 一百 = one ...
1
vote
2answers
190 views
What is the correct way to express the ordinal form of a large number?
If I want to express...
The 1114th person
...with the number in words, would it be best to do...
The one thousand, one hundred and fourteenth person
...or hyphenated...
The ...
9
votes
3answers
170 views
“Nine out of 10”
Most style guides call for spelling out numbers less than 10, and using numerals for those 10 and over. While reading a magazine today, I saw the phrase nine out of 10, and it struck me as wrong even ...
2
votes
1answer
178 views
Etymology of million vs. millennium
Why is it that a period of one thousand years is a millennium, but one million is a thousand thousands?
0
votes
3answers
787 views
Hyphenating spelled-out fractions with large numerators and/or denominators
I find myself in the awkward position of needing to systematically spell out fractions where the numerator, the denominator, or both have three or more digits, and I'm not sure about the hyphenation. ...
2
votes
2answers
189 views
Is it safe to use the British standard for numbering in a novel with a worldwide audience? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Billion and other large numbers
Where I am from (Barbados) I grew up knowing a Billion to = 1000 000 000 000, not 1000 000 000, and it was some years before I learned to ...
-2
votes
2answers
1k views
Period before or after short form for inches
When writing a sentence that contains the short version of inches as a double quote, (e.g. the box measured 14") does the period come before, or after the quotation mark?
3
votes
4answers
3k views
Standard format for phone numbers? [closed]
I've recently noticed a wider variety in how phone numbers are presented, both in print and online, specifically with regard to spacing & punctuation.
Examples:
+1 (555) 123 4567
+1 (555) ...
18
votes
1answer
289 views
When and why did the number reading order change [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
19th century English texts occasionally use germanic-style number words, such as “four-and-twenty”. When did this fall out of use?
In Arabic and even in ...
5
votes
2answers
4k views
What follows next in the sequence “unary, binary, ternary…”?
I looked on Oxford's online dictionary and was able to find the names identifying orders of a given degree:
primary
secondary
tertiary
quaternary
quinary
senary
septenary
octonary
nonary
denary
-- ...
8
votes
3answers
2k views
“Amount” vs. “number” vs. “quantity”
For what values of x does one write the number of x, the amount of x, or the quantity of x?
3
votes
0answers
222 views
Why do we say “odd” when describing numbers? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Where did the “odd” in “N odd years” come from?
When we speak about numbers, we usually associate "odd" with it. For example, "We have 70-odd ...
4
votes
3answers
295 views
“Amount of boxes” vs “number of boxes” in non discrete graph
I have a graph where I show number of boxes that a machine can service per minute. The data may not always give a whole number (for example, a machine may be able to service 2.3 boxes / per minute).
...
3
votes
3answers
326 views
What word can I say if I want to give approximate number?
What to say if I want to tell approximate number of something. What should I say? E.g.
I have (around/ about/ some) 5 books.
Is there a rule for number approximation?
4
votes
4answers
597 views
What do you call each individual component of a number: a “digit”, a “figure”, or “place”?
What are the individual 0, 1, 2, "letters" etc. in numbers called? I know the word "digits", I've seen "n-figure salary", and Google translation (from German "Stellen"), when used in a sentence, ...
2
votes
1answer
116 views
Is it acceptable to use digit and word form of numbers in the same sentence/paragraph?
To illustrate, this reads a bit awkward:
In a country with 75 billion SMBs, at least seven billion of them should advertise.
What's the acceptable practice in such sentences ?
2
votes
1answer
1k views
When you have 5 instead of 4, what's the word instead of “quadrant”?
...or, to phrase it differently, like one of those silly SAT questions... please help me fill in this blank:
4 is to 5 as "quadrant" is to ????
(Does that make sense?)
5
votes
4answers
2k views
How to correctly specify a range of temperatures in both Fahrenheit and Celsius?
Current icky wording:
... they do best in
temperatures between 40 and 125
degrees F. ( 5 and 52 degrees C )
Using the "degree" symbol seems correct, but in a range should it be specified for ...
0
votes
2answers
109 views
Why “proximate” refers to centesimal? [closed]
I mean, when I read "proximate" I think about "proximity".. why does it refers exactly to the 3rd digit in a number?
