Numbers Round-up
Last year Word-wise looked at the question of whether numbers should be represented in writing with Arabic numerals (1, 12, 305, etc.) or words (fifteen, twenty-six, ten thousand, etc.). It's a complex question that took four posts to cover sufficiently.
In the final, summary numbers post, I provided several examples where mixtures of spellings and Arabic numerals were appropriate. Those were a good start, but my local newspaper ran a story last week that was chock full of similar examples. Test your memory of the rules: In the excerpt below, what is the reason each of the numbers appears in the format it does? (Hint: All numbers below are correct. Newspaper = Use the AP standard, not the Chicago.)
...Thursday's checks netted 125 traffic offenses. Thirty-five of those were for speeding - 27 in Chesapeake and eight in North Carolina; 64 tickets were issued for vehicle equipment; six were issued for driving on a suspended license; and 45 were for other violations.Plurals and Apostrophes, Redux
And earlier this year was a series on how to correctly use apostrophes. Among the trickier apostrophe decisions is when it's necessary to add an apostrophe to a plural.
Reader Pastor Ben shared a link that nicely wraps up apostrophe usage in the form of a wry flow chart-style illustration. That link reminded me of another apostrophes/plurals cartoon that circulated among the classrooms of my fellow English teachers a few years ago. Both illustrations prove that grammar and punctuation lessons don't have to be humorless.
A Brief Look at Linguistics
Finally, reader Jerry shared a link, this one an audio interview with linguist John McWhorter. The conversation begins with a very generalized look at what makes language and a teaser overview of McWhorter's latest book. Then a wide variety of listener questions rolls in. The segment's topics range from the academic to the pedestrian: what a tonal language is; where to find other people who want to talk about language; and what kind of phrasing "makes you sound like a fop," to name a few. (Note: When you open or download the file, the time summary is a bit misleading. McWhorter's segment is only 25 minutes long, but the MP3 also contains a second, unrelated interview.)
Thank you for sharing your language-related finds!
There's a lot to think about here. Jump right in with your observations, comments, questions, or even additional link suggestions.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteRe: Numbers Round-up
ReplyDeleteThat "correct" example according to AP style bothers me as much today as it did last time number style was discussed so, rather than cite my prejudices again, I propose a new discussion somewhat related.
Jane Straus of GrammarBook.com ( http://www.grammarbook.com/numbers/numbers.asp ) sounds like my 4th grade teacher. My teacher used to say "English is very simple as long as you remember the rules" then proceeded with thousands of rules a youngster could never remember.
My new pet peeve is the need to hyphenate all numbers between 20 and 100 which are not evenly divisible by 10, e.g. forty-three. Why that rule was ever created completely escapes me and I cannot find any authoritative information about the rationale. I propose ridding us of that absurd rule immediately.
Thanks for your comment, Jerry!
ReplyDeleteI never thought much about why number hyphenation is the rule, but it seems it would be useful in situations where one number immediately follows another. The hyphen can prevent misreading the numbers as separate when they are intended to be together. Compare these two sentences:
No, Sue isn't really twenty-nine. In fact, she was forty three years ago. (Without the hyphen, we read that Sue is now forty-three.)
vs.
No, Sue isn't really twenty-nine. In fact, she was forty-three years ago. (With the hyphen, we read that forty-three years ago, Sue had her twenty-ninth birthday--that is, she is now 72.)
But I do see your point. That is a truly contrived numbers example the likes of which would happen very seldom (because when it does, no doubt the statistics/numerals rule more often applies than the words rule).
I guess we just chalk the number hyphenation rule up to attempting to make number conform to other hyphenated compounds...although there are many two-word compounds, and plenty of unhyphenated one-word compounds also in the mix.
Hm.
Ain't that just the way of English!