Talk:English numerals

2003

Years after 2000 have no set system as of yet for expressing them.

What about "twenty oh-three"?

That's generally not used, or, at least, i've never heard it used. --Random|832 03:15, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I've heard 2010 as "twenty-ten," 2040 as "twenty-fourty," etc. But for single digits, it's more like "two-thousand-four." LockeShocke 22:16, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)

The host of the CBS show "Sunday Morning" has been using the "twenty-oh" method of pronouncing the year for a long time now. 63.115.18.19 15:53, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Belongs in wikipedia?

This is wikibooks: stuff. --Menchi 02:01, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

zero point zero zero two

0.002 is "zero point zero zero two"

In England, many would say "nought point nought nought two", and likewise "nought" for any number zero.

Some recognition of the convention of saying "point nought two"/"point zero two" (i.e. dropping the number before the point - only done when it's a 0) might be made. I know it would confuse me if I'd never heard it. --Suitov, 13:49, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Is this OK? Sinuhe 13:28, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Yes, looking good. Thank you. --sv

I nor anyone else i have met have never used anything other than "oh" for zeros after the decimal point... And also for many other non-cardinal numbers (such as years, street addresses, room numbers, TV channel numbers) - i think this is worth mentioning. --Random|832 03:15, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Dates

I don't agree with the dates section. As a Briton, I might say the twenty-ninth of January, 2004 but I'm just as likely to say January the twenty-ninth, 2004. I agree that I would not say January twenty-ninth, 2004. -- Derek Ross

Feel free to correct that then. However, I have yet to see a Briton write "January 29th". Would you actually write the date thus? If not, perhaps it should be mentioned that in speech, it can be different. (Is this page about naming written numbers or any numbers, though?)

It's true that I would generally write "29th January" but I would quite happily say the 29th of January on one occasion and January, the 29th on another, as would most Britons.

As for the the you've inserted, it isn't actually missing. It is implied (and was hence bolded in the 'how it is said' section). Since there is no real authority to perscribe English use, I suppose either version should work – it is just that I've always been taught not to write the the in front of the date. Might it be put in brackets? Sinuhe 08:33, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I think that there are two cases here. If the date stands alone (on a cheque for instance), it should certainly be written "29th January, 2004". However if it is part of a sentence, my opinion is that it should be written "I will visit you on the 29th of January, 2004". I certainly would not feel comfortable missing out "the", although I might well miss out "of". Perhaps others, like yourself, think differently. -- Derek Ross 00:38, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I've tried to put this in (alongside additional examples), with a bit of help from Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries (apparently, they recommend that the ordinal suffix not be appended when the month comes first). Please see if you agree with how it is now. :) Sinuhe 08:48, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Yep, that looks good now, Sinuhe. Cheers. -- Derek Ross 21:02, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Just a small note: perhaps a section could be added on centuries, i.e., nineteenth century vs. 19th century. Also, there seems to be a small (ahem!) bias towards British English. I would also like to suggest that different forms are used in different contexts. January 12th, 2006 might be used in a letter while 12 January 2006 in an academic paper. (Or is this just a reflection of my own confusion on the matter?)

"And"

When spelling out an integer number in print or saying it out loud, using the word "and" within the number is technically wrong. Denelson83 10:02, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No, it is not wrong at all. What you mean by 'technically', however, eludes me. Certainly this is not a page where any technical usage might be advocated, but rather one where common English regardless of context is described. It is true that Americans tend not to use the 'and', so perhaps this is what you meant. I have added a note linking the appropriate section at American and British English differences. Sinuhe 10:39, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

As I see it, the use of "and" within a number is really universally incorrect. You'd never say "ninety and nine", would you? Denelson83 22:37, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No, I would not: but ninety is not a hundred. One cannot place the 'and' just anywhere: it stands ONLY after the hundreds if there is indeed anything after that. Thus: ninety-nine (99), one hundred (100), one hundred AND one (101), ten thosand and one (10001), ten thousand and ninety-nine (10099), ten thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine (10999). Of course this is perhaps somewhat more adhered to in British English than in American, but most certainly it is correct. Have you ever seen an authoritative source claim it wrong? Sinuhe 13:38, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Although I also remember learning that "and" should never be used when speaking a number in American English, this page at mathworld seems to suggest that both are acceptable. I would like a better reference source to really nail this down, though. Perhaps a good dictionary would provide a general rule? --Andrew L 16:51, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

'Technically' correct as opposed to commonly used. "Two thousand and five" is comman as is "I saw two cow's" but neither one is correct, in American usage. The next time I'm around a manual I'll find a source (or two) to cite. SpacemanSpork 22:49, 2005 Feb 22 (UTC)

What i learned in school was that the only acceptable use of "and" is to represent the decimal point... by the logic of the system i was taught, 3.14159 would be read as "three and fourteen thousand one hundred fifty-nine hundred-thousandths." However, this always struck me as an obviously prescriptivist rule. Sinuhe is correct as far as i can tell, except that i've always considered the "and"s optional. --Random|832 03:15, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I am American, and I also remember being told not to say "a hundred and one" in elementary school, but this went against my natural instinct. I suppose that this is a rule that has emerged in the U.S. but not in Britain. I would be willing to bet that a lot of Americans still use "and" in this case. Lesgles 14:34, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)

What I learned 30 years ago in American English was you ONLY use the word "and" when saying 101 "one hundred and one", 201 "two hundred and one" and all other -01 numbers (301,...1001, 1101, etc.), but then drop the "and" unless referencing decimals. Two hundred twelve, one hundred fifty, one thousand three hundred twenty two, etc. Effnyc 11:57, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I was taught in primary school in Australian English that you put an AND after where the hundreds would be (regardless of if the hundreds exist), so like what Sinhue said before. You say six hundred million and four for 600 000 004. Thus, hundred x means hundred times x, but hundred and x means hundred plus x. Colloquially, if there's hundreds then tens, some people might sometimes drop the 'and' (so occasionally you hear two hundred twenty, but that's rare and considered (hereabouts) "wrong" as far as you could all any "and" usage, and if there's any more distance, the and is always there from what I can tell. Obviously just a case of Americans differing from the rest of us. What do they do in Canada, can anyone say? —Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 14:24, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I was born and raised here in the U.S. and have lived on both coasts and in the middle, and I have never heard of any rule against using the "and." I think before 2000 I would have referred to this year as "two thousand six," but I think I say "two thousand and six" now. Until I encountered this article, I had the impression that this was the more correct usage. In other contexts I think I always use the "and:" for instance, being an amateur genealogist, I frequently talk about things that happened "a hundred and fifty years ago." (Of course, these numbers usually come out sounding more like "a-hundred-'n'-fifty.") -- Darrell M., 12.107.67.3 18:41, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nil

I, nor any american sportscaster i've heard on radio or TV, have never used "nil" to mean a score of zero... it's always been "none", or "nothing". --Random|832 03:15, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

In Australian football 4-0 is "four nil".
In cricket,
- a batsman's score of 0 would be
  - "yet to score" if not out; and
  - a "duck" if out.
- a bowler's score or 0/33 might be
  - "no wicket for 33 runs"; or
  - "none for 33 runs".

I think it may be a Britishism. Can anyone from other English-speaking countries comment--130.164.68.211 18:26, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)? Marnanel 15:13, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree. I'm a USA native, and I also think 'nil' is never used for scores in USA, so I've updated the sports (not 'sport' here) examples. 21 Apr 2005

To add to the debate late: in Australia "Nil" is commonly used. (Also, FWIW, "sport" is more commonly used that "sports"). Cheers, --Daveb 07:20, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I've heard American sportscasters use every name under the sun for blank scores: zero, zip, zilch, nil, nada, nothing, love (even outside of tennis), squat, jack, etc. (Oops, forgot to sign.) CaptHayfever 00:03, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

hundreds over nine

What about expressing numbers such as 2500 as "twenty-five hundred". I would think it is more common in American usage than saying "two thousand five hundred". It does convey a sense of approximation, though -- I might also read 2493 as "twenty-five hundred" in an informal context.

Seconded. In America at least, "fifteen hundred" is at least as common as "one thousand five hundred" though it sounds informal. This definitely deserves a mention, but hopefully someone with a better sense of this article's history and direction will do it. 130.94.161.238 09:46, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Nought in mathematics

My mathematics professors (in the US) tend to use nought for subscripts such as x₀ ("eks nought").

You incorrectly closed out the sub tag (instead of closing one you opened a second one). It was messing up the rest of the page so I fixed it for you. --Bobby D. DS. 20:36, 12 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Rename to "Names of numbers in English"

I'm about to move this page to "Names of numbers in English". Does anyone object? [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 07:30, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

With no objections, I'm going to rename the page. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 19:08, Oct 2, 2004 (UTC)

Linguistics over 999,999

What are the linguistic rules for coming up with such large numbers?

Million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, quintillion are fairly straight forward. But after that, what?

Sextillion or Hextillion? Which comes from which language, and which language is usually used? I'm assuming they derive from Greek, Latin or some other foreign language.

Septillion, Octillion, Nonillion, Decillion, then what?

Centillion (long scale, 1,000,000 to the power of 600; short scale, 1,000,000 to the power of 303)

Millillion (long scale, 1,000,000 to the power of 6000; short scale, 1,000,000 to the power of 3003)

What words and prefixes are used to assemble the names of such large numbers?

Latin prefixes are used for naming large numbers; therefore, sextillion would be the correct form.

Googol and googolplex

There's already an article which covers that sort of thing, as well as an article for each number, and each of those numbers only has one name – googol and googolplex, respectively. —Wiki Wikardo

Yes, but this article is a collection of all names given; there is no reason to exclude some when they occur somewhere else as well; much more detail can be given in the specialised articles. −Woodstone 11:07, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That may be the case, but the fact remains that neither googol nor googolplex are "specialized" names. If you can find a place they belong in the article where their inclusion isn't totally jarring + out of context, by all means, go ahead. I couldn't.

P.S. I noticed there's no link to Names of large numbers under "See also," although it is in the article List of numbers, which is linked there. I think it belongs there. —Wiki Wikardo 01:03, 18 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Numbers greater than 1 million

The article says that numbers greater than 1,000,000 are "seldom named" specifically. Any sources? This seems like a silly generalization and not at all encyclopedic. Problematic. Should be removed.Dave 00:00, 17 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It said that those numbers were seldomly used. I've removed that. Voortle 20:21, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Superscripts

The use of superscripts in ordinal numbers has never been particularly common in English up to the annoying feature of Microsoft Word. So I corrected them all. 68.6.85.167 01:22, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unverified assertions

This article generally does not cite sources. Its contributors wrote the article based on what they have heard; however, this does not accurately reflect English usage everywhere. Thus, we should cite an actual analysis of usage frequencies.

In particular, my dialect of English differs from the usage presented in the article:

"1/4 one-quarter (British) or one-fourth (American)" (and 3/4) I have heard "quarter" frequently used in the USA also.
The Ordinal section asserts that "and" between hundreds and tens is nonstandard and rare. In my experience, this "and" is common, and omitting it seems strained.

Those from other regions, please comment; comparison of usages is essential for this article. Pcu123456789 06:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hyphens in spelled-out numbers

The page uses the example:

 "There are six million dogs." (Preferred)

I'm curious as to why "six million dogs" is not better as "six-million dogs", given the use of "six million" as a compound adjective. (I guess this is not really a question about punctuating numbers, but rather about the interplay between punctuating numbers and punctuating compound adjectives.) Lee Feigenbaum 18:09, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For the same reason you don't say five-thirty PM. 83.70.247.123 04:41, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Avogadro's number is not for the "special names" section.

Or else, so are dozens of other mathematical, chemical, and physical constants that can fit in there. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.155.202.20 (talk) 20:42, 17 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Umpty

"Umpty" is not in common usage. It can appear in the form "umpty-one" (paralleling the usage in such numbers as "twenty-one"), as in "There are umpty-one ways to do it wrong."

I'd say it's not in any kind of use. Is there any reference to this usage which I've never heard of?

Common British vernacular

The "Common British vernacular" column appears twice in one of the tables in the middle, not sure why this is. --Hooperbloob 12:29, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is because the vernacular used changes depending on the context (quantifing marbles vs pronouncing bus no.). --Meridius (talk) 10:50, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The table is misleading because of the titles "American" and "British". The context of all three columns is different, and it is innacurate to say that one example is "American" while the other is "British". I suggest removing the titles "American" and "British" from the top row. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.91.105.168 (talk) 04:31, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Contradiction

There are two statements in the Dates section which appear to contradict each other:

“To read dates in ordinal fashion is considered archaic.”
“In British...English,... the ordinal suffix is always vocalised and often appended: "the 1st of October 1984".”

In my experience, having been a Briton for twenty-six years, the latter is correct. So, it would be nice if the editor who added the former to clarify what precisely she/he means, and differentiate it from the second.

Thanks, Thebrid (talk) 11:36, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

These two do contradict each other yes. However, for the first one the rest of the paragraph is mainly about years not being given in ordinal fashion (for instance it's way more common to see/hear "two thousand and eight" not that it's the "two thousand and eighth year" although correct. The statement you quoted first is wrong because it says dates not years. Dates of the month are (especially in Britain) overall given ordinally. Sometimes the months themselves but less common. I'm deleting the first statement and should be removing the contradiction label. Deamon138 (talk) 04:21, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This article marked for mass editing

Come on! Spelling prescriptions? Dubious geographic differences in naming? Unreferenced discussion of copyedititors' preferences in style? I'm so giving this article a massive overhaul... 131.193.237.19 (talk) 15:04, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strange examples...

"There are six million dogs." (Preferred) "There are 6,000,000 dogs." "That is one hundred twenty-five oranges." "That is 125 oranges." (Preferred)

Six million dogs?

One hundred and twenty-five oranges?

That's a bit excessive.

Lu na ke et 15:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no move. JPG-GR (talk) 18:03, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Names of numbers in English → Numbers in English — The following articles do not cover any pure numeral system where the symbols and notations are clearly defined, instead they cover how numbers are used in the respective languages. This distinct should be made, and they should all be renamed to a more consistent name. I propose they all be renamed "Numbers in ____". To make the distinction clearer, Roman numerals is a separate system of writing numbers distinct from Latin (Roman language). One is written as "I" in Roman numerals, while it is written as "unus" in Latin. — Voidvector (talk) 11:16, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

Oppose these should be separate proposals, this grouping is bad. 70.55.85.143 (talk) 06:58, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Please indicate how anyone of them is different from the others, and I will remove them respectively. Wikipedia:Requested moves specifically grants user the ability to "moving several pages at once" for situations like this. --Voidvector (talk) 07:30, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Unnecessary and odd grammatical constructions. Also, in some cases the numeral systems are not for a particular language, but for the culture as a whole--thus the new titles would not be entirely accurate. Each article's title should be discussed and evaluated on its own, with input from the community of editors with expertise in each specific subject. Badagnani (talk) 07:48, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - as per Badagnani. --ざくら木 12:45, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I can see what you're getting at with the notion that there's a difference between VII and septem. And so, when it comes to articles that discuss the words for numbers in various European languages, which use Roman or Arabic numerals and call them different things according to the language, I agree to your proposal. But as the template on the right side of the top of the page numeral system includes Chinese numerals (i.e. 一、二、三 as being different from 1,2,3 or I, II, III or א,ב,ג), as well as Hebrew, Japanese, and Korean. Since each of these languages uses a different set of numerals, that is, a different set of glyphs representing numbers, as according to their writing systems, it's not just a matter of the pronunciation, the words, for "Counting in X language" but that there is actually a separate numeral system. LordAmeth (talk) 15:25, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose The proposals are not unreasonable; there is a distinction between the numeral 5 and the number "five". But they are not necessary, as Lord Ameth points out, and risk unnecessary confusion with Number (grammar) in the various languages. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:28, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - most of these articles (apart, I think from Welsh numerals) are mainly about the written form of numbers in various languages, and so are correctly named. ~~I might support renaming of Welsh numerals, as it solely about spoken number names (and Finnish numerals has a similar problem) but each article should be listed separately~~. --Gandalf61 (talk)~~~~

Just checked "numeral" at Wiktionary and found I was wrong - a "numeral" is "a word or symbol representing a number". So "15", "fifteen" and "pymtheg" (Welsh) are all numerals. Therefore all of these articles are correctly named, and changing them to "Numbers in x" is definitely incorrect. As a matter of taste, I prefer "numerals" to the alternative construction "number names". Gandalf61 (talk) 14:36, 1 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I agree; I think the title of that article should become English numerals to match the others. CRGreathouse (t | c) 20:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think i am gonna move this article to English numerals when this discussion is closed. --Voidvector (talk) 06:47, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support in principal but not in practice yes the name numeral for most of these is inaccurate, but the proposed solutions Chinese Numbers etc. is not write either. Numbers are same in all languages: two is that number which comes after one. We really have names given to numbers not numbers. --Salix alba (talk) 14:10, 1 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Not a well thought out move request. Despite the claim that "The following articles do not cover any pure numeral system where the symbols and notations are clearly defined,", the Japanese and Korean ones clearly do (I didn't look as carefully at some of the others). Plentiful examples are given of how to write the numbers in Japanese and Korean numerals (both are based on the Chinese of course, but anyway...). I wonder if the nominator understands the examples. The appearance of Chinese characters may make it seem like the written examples are of the kind "three hundred and two" rather than numerals per se, but actually that is false. You can see price tags, menus, receipts, etc. written this way (not so much in Korea, I gather, but certainly in Japan one runs across plenty of such), I recommend the nominator make one move request at a time. Otherwise it is extremely difficult to understand the move rationale, which appear to apply more to some of the articles than others. --C S (talk) 06:07, 2 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I understand the situation perfect. You can "write out" numbers on a price tag in any format as long as both the customer and the shop agree on the price, and you can also represent it in any other pure numeral system (i.e. Suzhou numerals, Arabic numerals). It is purely based on what is customary in the region. I am trying to draw a distinction between "number names" and "non-number name" numeral systems, but it appears people don't like to be exact. --Voidvector (talk) 07:02, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Any additional comments:

The article Japanese numerals is not solely, or even primarily, about the numerals in use in the Japanese language (which aren't Japanese). It also encompasses pronunciation and usage. It should be renamed to indicate the broader scope of the contents. Fg2 (talk) 08:48, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is a good point. On the other hand, pronunciation and usage of numerals is certainly relevant to an article on numerals. I believe the scope of the contents is clearly indicated by the title. --C S (talk) 06:11, 2 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

~~Thousands separator in words~~
When writing out numbers in English, what is used to separate groups of thousands? I've most commonly seen the comma (,); for example, from what I've been taught, the number "123 456 789" would typically be written as "one hundred twenty-three million, four hundred fifty-six thousand, seven hundred eighty-nine" (note the two commas). But I've also seen the commas omitted for some numbers. I wish that the page had a section talking about this issue somewhere, as I'm sure there is some variation across different countries and usages. --128.97.245.68 (talk) 01:25, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]