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18 14

Are one through nine spelled out?

...my daughter texted today. "I'm writing a 7 page paper."

As a former columnist with an exacting editor, I replied:

One through nine are spelled out. Always spell out numbers when they are the first word in a sentence:

Forty-one people farted in unison.

Zero people attended.

Also, 10 and up are witten in digits:

At the party, 20 people jumped into the pool.

LiterateHiker 9 Apr 22
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18 comments

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1

I've heard this a thousand times, aways good advice. πŸ˜‰

1of5 Level 8 Apr 23, 2020
1

Okay. Maybe useful for current students. Not useful for me anymore. heh

1

I did not know this. Thanks.

1

English has a thousand rules and a million exceptions. Is that right?

1

Do you have a recording of number 1 example??
Lol

1

That’s how I do it. I typically follow AP Style in my work.

1

I thought that when you mixed numbers below and above 10, you defaulted to typing the number. So 41 people were split into 8 groups.

1

I think you are exactly correct but I often just use the numeral unless I am starting a sentence.

1

I spell out smaller numbers online cause it's easier then going to other menus to use numbers.. Anything higher than the ten.. Unsure..

1

That's how I learned it

0

Boring sentence:

"One thousand, seven hundred and seventy-six was the year the United States of America was established."

Better: "In 1776, America was founded."

From Strunk and White’s *Elements of Style: Omit needless words.

I've heard that Canadians, Mexicans, Central and South Americans feel it's haughty for those of us in the USA to refer to our nation as America--since they are Americans too.

Is that Jed Strunk? No, he was "A Daisy A Day." πŸ™‚

@Wallace That is not a Canadian sentiment at all. But I hear or read it often from south and central americans that consider the two continents as the Americas. I find it strange as well.

2

You’re correct ... spell out numbers below 10 and any number starting a sentence. Also, she would hyphenate β€œseven-page paper.” (My degree is in English and I work as a writer/editor.)

PS - The rules are much relaxed when texting. πŸ˜‰

Okay, what about pi? If I use an approximation at the start of a sentence ... oh wait, I guess I could just not do that instead. πŸ˜‰

@MarkWD You would say β€œApproximately 3.14.”

1

Good reminder

3

When are we ever going to use this? I don't even know 41 flatulent people let alone any that talented. πŸ˜‰

@MarkWD

I included humor to amuse my daughter. It was fun writing.

I have to write reports and I use it all the bloody time. Although I follow literate's rules generally, I change the format to whatever is easiest to read or allows the sentence to flow best. Or change my sentence structure so that it doesn't look "clunky".

1

Yet when you write a number in this group it always underlines it like you did a bad thing! 13

BillF Level 7 Apr 22, 2020

@BillF

I didn't know that because I write numbers correctly. It's a habit.

@LiterateHiker Yep, knew my laziness would keep me in trouble!

1

Great info to know ,Thank you,

2

Now I know where to go if I have a grammar question. Do you have a fee?

@WilliamFleming

Ask away. No charge.

@LiterateHiker I was taught in school that β€œloan” is ALWAYS a noun and that the the verb is β€œlend”. Yet I constantly see it the other way, even in high-class publications. β€œSet” and β€œlay” are constantly used in ways that would have made my high school English teacher scream. Am I off base here?

I’m going to lie lowly until I hear back. πŸ™‚

@WilliamFleming

Agreed. Grammar and spelling mistakes make people seem dumb and careless.

@WilliamFleming "...lie lowly..." Haha! I guess speaking correctly can be fun. Who was it (Churchill?) who said "Ending sentences with prepositions is something up with which I shall no longer put"?

3

Thank you I did not know that. Were those 41 people in a church?

That would explain why I haven't met them.

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