On Fri, 05 Jan 2001, Piers Cawley wrote:
> But, but... 0.21 is *not* 'point twenty one', it's 'point two one',
> otherwise you get into weirdness with: .21 and .210 being spoken as
> 'point twenty one' and 'point two hundred (?:and)? ten' and all of a
> sudden the '2' in that figure has gained an order of magnitude which
> is just plain *wrong*.
Then it would be "one eight zero zero point two one."
Yes, at least the U.S. used to teach that the gratuitous use of "and" was
wrong - "one thousand eight hundred twenty-one," but the rules have been
loosened for integer numbers.
One thousand eight hundred twenty-one.
One thousand eight hundred and twenty-one
Eighteen hundred and twenty-one.
One thousand eight hundred and twenty-one hundredths.
One thousand eight hundred and two million, one hundred thousand ten
millionths.
How did we get on this subject? Oh, yes, sorting by the number spelled out...
That should throw several cultures for a loop.
Four and twenty blackbirds, baked 'e' and 'pi'.
>
> Ghod knows how this GST would have you pronounce 5.6.0, 'five
and six
> and oh'?
The computer kulture has its own rules for written and spoken grammar.
--
Bryan C. Warnock
bwarnock@(gtemail.net|capita.com)
