Questions tagged [fractions]
The fractions tag has no usage guidance.
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Names of some fractions
Which are the names of fractions like 1/3, 2/3, 4/3, which are now in disuse or render obsolete. I saw a bit of time ago, a book that mentioned the names associated to those fractions (instead of the ...
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Replacement for “x times lower”
In scientific writing numbers are often compared and if something is twice the size of something else, let‘s say
A is 13 to 17 times the size of B
this can be written as
A is 13–17 times higher/...
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How are decimal numbers read or pronounced in different locales (different decimal separator)?
In the USA we use a period (dot) as the decimal separator. The word "point" is normally used for the decimal separator when reading such a number. For example, a number such as 3.14 would ...
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Are Decimals and Fractions Singular or Plural? [duplicate]
I would speak 0.25 mile as twenty-five one-hundredths of a mile. Why should I write it as 0.25 miles and not 0.25 mile if it's the hundredths that are plural are singular and miles is singular?
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"Half" or "A Half"
This argument has come up at work, and I actually found it pretty interesting.
My colleague is arguing that you might say "a quarter of a pizza", whereas you'd just say "half of a pizza" rather than "...
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Alternate formulations for "four-month anniversary" (one-third of a year)
Looking for alternate formulations to four-month anniversary, a formulation that would highlight the fact that one third of a year has gone by since a certain date.
For six months there is the word ...
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Why is “one one-thousandths of a second” plural?
The other day I came across this page and found a phrase strange to me.
The Britannica Dictionary
a/one thousandth of a second
= one one-thousandths of a second [= 1/1000 second]
The plural "s&...
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What are the rules about using 'half of' with plural nouns?
Here are some sentences with 'half of' and plural nouns that I consider to be well-formed:
Half of all films are a waste of celluloid.
Half of users surveyed said they preferred the old product.
...
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When and why did "a" become a synonym for "per"?
In modern day lingo, we often read and hear phrases like "50 cycles a second" or "60 words a minute" or "30 kilometers an hour". When did English first start using "...
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How much is Plural? [duplicate]
What does plural mean? Is it 2 or greater?
Is 1.5 plural? Is it "I ate 1.5 apple." or "I ate 1.5 apples."?
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How to pronounce fractions with denominators larger than 20 where the last digit of the denominator is 1 or 2? eg 4/31
Disclaimer: I speak British English. I've noticed a lot of differences between the way Americans and Brits pronounce numbers.1 Since the question concerns this, I thought it might be appropriate to ...
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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 share ...
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Two-thirds or two-third share? [duplicate]
Please, if I say four-wheel-drive, can I say two-third share?
Thank you
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Valid ways of saying a fraction using (saying) cardinal number as its denominator
Suppose we have a fraction: 23 / 100.
Using cardinal way of saying a fraction, which of the following is spoken colloquially?
I believe I listed all possible ways (valid and invalid) of saying a ...
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"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 ...
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For which fractions is it standard practice to specify using 'over' instead of '-ths'?
For which fractions is it standard practice to specify using 'over' instead of ordinals?
For example, we read 5/16 as 'five-sixteenths' but 100/151 as 'one hundred over one hundred fifty one'.
...
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"Ten times fewer the number" versus "one-tenth the number"
Lately I've been hearing and reading statistics that are communicated in wording that, frankly, confuses me. Forgive me for not citing specific instances, but I can give a hypothetical statistic that ...
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Which number to pluralise
Do you say 'eights-and-a-half' or 'eight-and-a-halfs' when asking whether a person has that size in shoes or stockings?
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How to say fractions like "7/8" or "546/823"
I have come across the following three spoken variants for the fraction ⅞:
Seven by eight
Seven over eight
Seven into eight
I am also aware of seven-eighths but I don't want to use that as it isn't ...
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how to incorporate mixed fractions into English
For example, when writing a recipe which should you use?
one and a half cup
one and a half cups
one cup and a half
a cup and a half
a cup and half
three halves of a cup
Also, if you were to use ...
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Can you use "a" before "1/4" when there is no unit following?
I know you can say things like "a 1/4 inch hole" and similar, where the article belongs to the noun and not to the quarter. A colleague of mine is about to publish something like "a 1/4 of the people ...
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Why does "one half" have no hyphen, but "two-thirds" does?
I often see the fraction ⅔ written with a hyphen, but I never see ½ written with one. Is it correct to have the hyphen in two-thirds, and if so why don't we write one-half?
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Term for numbers that have at least one non-zero significant digit after the decimal point?
So, a number that is nothing but fractions is "fractional". A number that has a whole number and a fraction is "mixed", if you want to call it that. And the portion after the decimal point is called ...
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What is the correct way to pluralize improper fractions?
Say, for example, I'd like to express that I have four complete six-slice pizzas and one with five out of six slices. Would I say "I have 29/6 pizzas"? "4 and 5/6 of a pizza" for mixed fractions?
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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 ...
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Why are decimals read as fractions by some cultures?
I find it very strange that the top results on Google for "how to read decimal" give me a very strange way to read them - as fractions.
I have learnt to read the digits individually and it makes a ...
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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. ...
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How to punctuate math fractions?
I was doing the Writing and interpreting decimals exercise on Khan Academy and was asked the following question:
What is nine and three hundred two thousandths in numerical form?
I read it as "...
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What do you call a fraction that cannot be written as a finite decimal?
For example, the fraction ⅓ cannot be written, because it repeats infinitely (0.33333333... etc). Is there a particular word for numbers that cannot be written directly, but must be expressed as ...
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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?
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Is there a fraction prefix for “(one-)third”?
I am a mathematician, working with things called 1⁄k-regular polytopes, dubbed thus by Conway. For the case of k = 2, as in ½-regular, it is naturally pronounced and written half-regular.
However, I ...
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Do people “go half/halves” on something?
If two people want to buy a car together, would they go half on the car or halves. Example: Let's go half on this car or Let's go halves on this car?
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Any compact ways to say “reduce the model to less than 25% of its original size”?
As the title of the question requests, are there any compact ways to say to reduce the model to less than 25% of its original size?
The original phrase looks weird.