Questions relating to the use of numbers or numerals in speaking or writing English.
90
votes
12answers
3k views
Why do English writers avoid explicit numerals?
The junction has a stop sign on each of the four entrances.
The junction has a stop sign on each of the 4 entrances.
The first is preferred, for some reason, by many English texts. Why? I ...
34
votes
3answers
4k views
Why do eleven and twelve get unique words and not end in “-teen”?
In short, why is it not oneteen and twoteen, and we start at thirteen in English?
In another thread, I supposed that despite that fact that people have ten fingers, amounts of items leading up to and ...
29
votes
9answers
2k views
“1 in 10 are” or “1 in 10 is”?
Take the examples:
"One in ten children are dyslexic."
"One in ten children is dyslexic."
"One in ten children has dyslexia."
"One in ten children have dyslexia."
The "one" is singular so 2 and 3 ...
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?
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, ...
23
votes
2answers
2k views
What is the plural form of “zero”?
I tried looking on Google, but there are some fairly contradictory results.
I thought I'd ask you guys so we could get an authoritative answer on the subject!
23
votes
3answers
2k views
Is two-thirds plural?
Is 2/3 always, sometimes or never plural?
E.g.
1a) 2/3 of the pizza were eaten.
1b) 2/3 of the pizza was eaten.
2a) 2/3 of the visitors were men.
2b) 2/3 of the visitors was men.
I ...
21
votes
7answers
6k views
Plurals of acronyms, letters, numbers — use an apostrophe or not?
When I was in high school back in the 1970s, I was taught that to make a plural of an acronym, a letter, or a number, one should add an apostrophe and "s". Like I would have written this sentence, ...
20
votes
5answers
1k views
What method of counting puts Twelfth Night on January 6th?
I know English has (or at least had) some strange usages of eve and night, but I still can’t figure out how December 25th and 12 can be combined to come up with January 6th.
(This stems from my ...
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 ...
17
votes
2answers
826 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 ...
16
votes
10answers
2k views
How do you correctly say large numbers
I saw a post on The daily What which links to a video where a person counts from 1 to 100,000.
Is he saying a large portion of the numbers wrong?
Back in high school my algebra teacher was extremely ...
16
votes
7answers
4k views
Should we use plural or singular for a fraction of a mile?
I have seen people say both 0.25 mile and 0.25 miles. Should we use plural or singular for a fraction of a mile?
16
votes
5answers
878 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 ...
15
votes
5answers
1k views
What do you do when a sentence ends with a decimal?
In a sentence like "The answer is 0.8." the period looks awkward after "0.8". Is there a rule for a situation like this? Sometimes I put a space before the period like this: "The answer is 0.8 ." ...
15
votes
6answers
2k views
“Firstly” or “first”?
Which is more correct?
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. First, thy eyes gaze deep into my soul. Second,...
or
There are four reasons why all should hail the Hypno-Toad. Firstly, ...
15
votes
2answers
391 views
Is there a system for creating words for ordinal numbers?
I'm not sure if "sequential" is the right word, but what is the system for creating a sequence of numbers like this:
primary (as in 1st in choice or importance)
secondary (as in 2nd in choice or ...
15
votes
3answers
595 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 ...
15
votes
4answers
1k views
Why are numbers usually written twice in contracts?
In contracts numbers are usually written twice: in numerical and literal form.
I understand the vast majority of text in a typical contract can be safely deleted without impacting the core message ...
14
votes
6answers
956 views
Is it proper grammar to refer to four digit number in hundreds?
Sometimes you will hear people refer to four digit numbers in terms of hundreds. For example, sometimes people will say fifteen hundred when talking about the number 1500. Is this proper?
What are ...
13
votes
3answers
182 views
Is there a word like cardinal or ordinal but for the “single, double, triple” series?
The words one, two, three, and so on are the cardinal numbers.
Similarly, first, second, third, and so on are the
ordinal numbers.
Is there a similar term for the words single, double, triple, ...
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 ...
12
votes
3answers
8k views
Should there be a space before a percent sign?
Should there be a space before a percent sign or not?
Should you write 20% or 20 %?
I'm not sure if there is any consensus about this or not. Is one way more common than the other?
12
votes
4answers
690 views
19th century English texts occasionally use germanic-style number words, such as “four-and-twenty”. When did this fall out of use?
19th century English texts occasionally use germanic-style number words, such as "four-and-twenty", but the same text would also have the modern "twenty-four" in places (see e.g. Conan-Doyle for ...
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
5answers
923 views
Is there a word for numbers between 10 and 99?
I'd like to find such a word instead of saying "greater than 10 but less than 100".
11
votes
5answers
3k views
What does the term “86'd” relate to?
What does it mean when someone or something is referred to as being "86'd"?
11
votes
4answers
5k views
What is the origin of the counting prefixes: uni-, bi-/di-, tri-, quad-, etc.?
Many English words use the prefixes uni-, bi-/di-, tri-, quad- and so on to mean one, two, three, and four. For example:
A unicycle has one wheel, a bicycle two, and a tricycle three.
I presume ...
11
votes
1answer
408 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 ...
11
votes
4answers
979 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 ...
10
votes
6answers
3k views
Why are numbers sometimes spelled out and then numerals specified as well? [closed]
I'm referring to the peculiar habit I sometimes see in formal documents, where a number is given numerically after it's spelled out. It seems quite redundant:
I need five (5) kumquats, stat!
...
10
votes
2answers
351 views
Indefinite article in the “An [adjective] [number] [plural noun]” construction
I wasn't sure how best to phrase the title of this question.
I'm interested in constructions of the following form:
An estimated 50 people died in the bombing.
'An estimated' could be ...
9
votes
5answers
2k views
How do I pronounce “ratio 1:1”?
How do I pronounce "ratio 1:1"?
Should I pronounce it "ratio 1 to 1"?
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 ...
9
votes
1answer
999 views
How do I determine subject and subject complement in “A side-effect is the spread of commercialese to other domains.”?
Consider this example:
Commercialese is an instrument of art,
designed to enrich and invigorate our
language—surely you will all agree
with this—, and we should encourage newcomers to learn ...
8
votes
3answers
369 views
What is the correct term to describe 'primary', 'secondary', etc
What is the correct term to describe the words in the following sequence: primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary, quinary, senary, septenary, octonary, nonary, denary, duodenary, etc.
I am thinking ...
8
votes
4answers
1k views
How can I form a word like “quadruple” for any number I want?
I'm not sure what these are called, but how can I form a word like "quadruple" for any number I want? Like 5× as much is quintuple, what is 31× as much or 147× as much? I want to know how they are ...
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?
8
votes
3answers
2k views
“A million and a half” vs. “one and a half million”
Every so often, I come across the phrase "a million and a half X" - which always strikes me as strange: it suggests 1000000.5 of the thing. I was taught to use instead "one and a half million" to be ...
8
votes
2answers
179 views
Is “-th” still a productive suffix in English?
The main question here is whether using -(e)th to create ordinals out of cardinals1 is still considered a productive suffix in English. Is it?
If so, then does it matter whether we are in a formal ...
8
votes
1answer
303 views
Data is/are in a global context
I have been commissioned to script a series of brief videos on the importance of data accuracy and consistency. The videos are directed to employees of a company with offices around the ...
7
votes
3answers
1k views
How much exactly is increased when it is “increased by 1.1”?
I saw it in a text book, and a similar problem that also appeared in the book is "3 times faster", which is already asked. Simply speaking, the book says:
Unfortunately, it increases the CPI by ...
7
votes
4answers
277 views
Transcribing long repeating phone numbers
I always have this problem of telling people my phone number which consists of a series of repeating numbers:
184 555 5555 (DO NOT CALL, this is just as an example)
I can tell people it is:
...
7
votes
8answers
2k views
Is “Four times more” grammatically correct? And, if so, what precisely does it mean?
I have 10 beans. Jim has four times more.
Is this a valid sentence? And, if so, does it mean Jim has 40 or 50 beans?
7
votes
2answers
2k views
Using “the” before ordinal numbers
When learning English I was told that ordinal numbers should always be used with "the" before them. But I often see that this is not always so strict, for example I heard the phrase "April first" ...
6
votes
5answers
518 views
“Give me one half of that” Vs. “give me half of that”
I can't remember when and where I had this discussion, but I remember being corrected when I was speaking by a stranger saying that it is never correct to say give me half of this; instead, the ...
6
votes
4answers
132 views
Name for number format used in “Section 3.2.1”
Does that kind of numbering style have a common name or names? To be fair, it is really more of an "identifier" since it certainly not a scalar (one-dimensional) number. It isn't fair to call it a ...
6
votes
2answers
2k views
Why is “one” pronounced as “wan”, not “oh-ne”?
Why is one pronounced as "wan", not "oh-ne"? Why are the spelling and pronunciation of one so strange?
In French, one is written as un, and pronounced as "oe" (with nasal sound). The sound is similar ...
6
votes
5answers
3k views
Why are Roman numerals still used?
Why are Roman numerals still used today primarily on clocks and film titles?
6
votes
3answers
295 views
“Three quarters” vs. “three fourths”
To express a fraction of 3 out of 4, how and when would you use three quarters, and when would you use three fourths?
To me, three quarters is what I would have used all the time — but I'm not a ...
