[seqfan] Re: How to speak long numbers -- now I'm really curious (-:

[Alex M]

I was worried the wording was a little unclear - but, as I said, it's just
how I personally do it. I'll elaborate..
When one crosses from 100's to 10's (but not from, say, 100,000 to 10,000) -
with any number of zeros on either side - insert an "and". This creates,
usually, a kind of ending to otherwise drawn out numbers. E.g., "1,234,567"
becomes "One million, two hundred and thirty-four thousand, five hundred and
sixty-seven" - the last "and" gives a feeling that the number is about the
end.
The other time I include an and is when, within one group of three digits, I
cross from the hundreds place to a tens place or a ones place. For instance,
"One million, one hundred and thirty-four thousand". To me, the "one hundred
and thirty-four" is one number being placed in the thousands grouping, and
so you have the same usage of "and" there.
"One million, three hundred thousand and four" had the "and" by the first
rule. You go cross the 100-10 boundary, so you include the and.
"One million, three hundred thousand one hundred" would not have any "and"s,
as I would speak it.

As for the other question, if you want to cite me, that's fine, but like I
said I'm not any authority - just one person giving their take. ^_^


~6 out of 5 statisticians say that the
number of statistics that either make
no sense or use ridiculous timescales
at all has dropped over 164% in the
last 5.62474396842 years.

On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 1:37 AM, Robert Munafo <mrob27 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello Alex,
>
> Thanks for your reply --
>
> I am getting lots of answers, and I think I might add a page on my web site
> on numbers (see mrob.com/pub/math/numbers.html and
> mrob.com/pub/math/largenum.html) concerning this topic.
>
> So please let me know if I can list you as a source or if you want to be "a
> correspondent" or completely anonymous.
>
> Just for clarification, how does the 1,300,004 example fit the rules? Do
> you use "and" because you cross from a hundreds to tens place while going
> from the 3 to the 4? Or maybe because you cross such a boundary twice? Why
> does 1,000,394 only have one "and"?
>
> - Robert
>
> On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 19:07, Alex M <timeroot.alex at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I, too, have been told that "and" is to be used only for fractions, i.e
>> "1,234,567" is "one million, two hundred thirty-four thousand, five
>> hundred
>> sixty seven", and "12 1/2" is "twelve and one half", and "12.34" should
>> technically be "twelve and thirty-four hundredths" - this last one is now
>> fairly rare, though, so we say "twelve point three four".
>> I, personally, find it absolutely fine to use "and" for separating
>> numbers.
>> The way I prefer, and which I find the "most correct", is to include an
>> "and" if and only if anywhere between two non-zero digits does it cross
>> from
>> the hundreds place to the tens place, or if it is directly from a
>> 100*10^3n
>> place to a 10*10^3n place. For instance:
>> 1,234 = One thousand, two hundred and thirty four
>> 1,200 = One thousand, two hundred
>> 1,004 = One thousand and four
>> 1,000,394 = One million, three hundred and ninety-four
>> 1,394,000 = One million, three hundred and ninety-four thousand
>> 1,300,000 = One million, three hundred thousand
>> 1,300,004 = One million, three hundred thousand and four
>> 1,300,400 = One million, three hundred thousand, four hundred
>>
>> This is just how I perceive it, of course...
>>
>> ~6 out of 5 statisticians say that the
>> number of statistics that either make
>> no sense or use ridiculous timescales
>> at all has dropped over 164% in the
>> last 5.62474396842 years.
>
>
>
> --
>   Robert Munafo  --  mrob.com
>   Follow me at: gplus.to/mrob - fb.com/mrob27 - twitter.com/mrob_27 -
> mrob27.wordpress.com - youtube.com/user/mrob143 - rilybot.blogspot.com
>