Intermediate English Grammar for ESL Learners - Robin Torres-Gouzerh 2016

Numbers
24 Capitalization, numbers, and italics

Whole numbers from one through ten are usually spelled out in sentences; whole numbers larger than ten are written as numerals. However, this is a style —not grammar—issue, and the main objective should be consistency.

Eight in ten voters were disappointed.

This hospital employs 437 nurses.

A number that begins a sentence is spelled out and capitalized.

Twenty-eight thousand people crossed the border.

Very large numbers can be expressed in several ways.

30,000 political prisoners

30 thousand political prisoners

thirty thousand political prisoners

Numbers used in business documents or in legal writing are often spelled out and written as numerals to avoid confusion.

The broker’s profits are not to exceed forty thousand (40,000) dollars.

Uses of numbers

Numbers can be used to express time, dates, and periods of time.

3 P.M. ~ 3:00 P.M. ~ three o’clock in the afternoon

July 23, 1976

the seventeenth century ~ the 17th century

the ’80s ~ the eighties ~ the 1980s

Numbers are used in addresses.

1949 Yucca Mountain Road

1600 Liberal Lane

Chicago, IL 60601

Numbers are used in decimals, percentages, pages and chapters of books, scenes in a play, temperature, geographic coordinates, money, and forms of identification.

0.0987, 20.75

17 percent ~ 17% ~ seventeen percent

page 34, chapter 45

Act V, Scene III, lines 108-110

36° C ~ 36 degrees Celsius

latitude 45° N

$5.30 ~ five dollars and thirty cents

Queen Elizabeth II, Henry VIII

Channel 8

Area 51

Exercise 24.3 Rewrite each sentence, using the numbers correctly. )f the sentence is correct and no changes are required, mark an X in the blank.

1. An important date to remember is November seventeen 1959.

2. The city paid $ thirty-four point seven million to build the tower.

3. It took 5 out of 9 members to reach a consensus.

4. In Europe, the nineteen seventies were marked by social and political change.

5. Turn to page one hundred and nine, which should be chapter twelve.

6. The morning temperature was forty-seven degrees Fahrenheit, or 8 degrees Celsius.

7. The address listed in the phone book was 3465 Milkway Avenue.

8. They drove down Interstate thirty-four to the lake.

9. The Second Battle of Bull Run was fought from August twenty-eight to thirty, eighteen sixty-two.