People be writing words with the letters all connected in cursive so the quill didn’t have to lift up or whatever.
How come they didn’t do that with the digits in numbers?
People be writing words with the letters all connected in cursive so the quill didn’t have to lift up or whatever.
How come they didn’t do that with the digits in numbers?
Traditionally numbers in text should be written out fully, so “three hundred and twenty seven” instead of “327”
Also western Arabic numerals are relatively new to English, before we used Roman numerals, which are all upper case.
In typesetting, numbers ten and under are always spelled out, and also numbers at the start of a sentence of any size. Numbers one, through ninety-nine are hyphenated if spelled out, ninety-nine percent of typesetters agree. Also, the “and” is frowned upon. It should be “three hundred and twenty-seven”, if quoting, if that is what was said, but three hundred twenty-seven otherwise.
However, numerals in text is fine, outside of the limitations above, and there are lowercase numerals in many classic typefaces that are less jarring to the eye in body type than the uppercase numerals.
Consider the number, 1,234,567. Spelled out, it’s one million two hundred thirty-four thousand five hundred sixty-seven. That’s cumbersome. That would almost always be written with numerals, and not spelled out. And, a sentence including it should be written to keep it from the beginning.
(Yes, children, I said sixty-seven, please try to contain yourselves.)
Because seven ate nine.
In a legal setting even those long numbers are still spelled out in contracts in many jurisdictions.
Ludicrous!
Although they did get spelled out on checks in the old days as a anti-fraud counter measure.
In the old days? I still do it. Just not that often.
They still get spelled out on checks today.
There are still checks today?
Yes, I will be writing one to pay my rent later today.
Whoa
We still have a couple of fairly large companies that pay us by check. I hate it because our finance office requires that it be deposited immediately and it disrupts my day.
Which is weird, because since ~2006 all checks are treated the same as debut card transactions after the first check is processed, since both sides nownhave full routing info.
It’s important to spell out numbers in addition to writing them when it comes to important documents and such
It helps you verify the numbers are accurate
The meme isn’t sixty seven, pops.
… You apparently haven’t been around the kids who push this annoying meme? They absolutely would count “sixty seven” as “six seven” without a split second of thought.
Depends on the dialect. That “and” is a requirement in British English.
It’s not hard rules, though. There’s a myriad of publishing styles. Each define different rules and guidelines to when and where numbers are spelled out. Hyphen was dropped from several guides, for example. The and has also been optional for certain publishing houses for a while, but in England it is still mandatory. Academic and literary will differ in how they enforce this guides and exactly what they are. Language is relative, changing and fluid, and this was all different mere 30 years ago. It moves with the expectations of the audience.
Also, it is six seven. Respect the memes guidelines.
The “and” is necessary in British English at least (saying that the US constitution uses it)
(In older forms it would be three hundred and seven and twenty)
I thought that was only for single digit numbers. Or is that a more recent convention?
I don’t know how universal it was, but in old documents it’s common to see dates written out fully in the form of “on the thirty-first day of January in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty-six”