The treatment of numbers - 1, 2, 3, go - The stuff in the front

Dreyer's English - Benjamin Dreyer 2022

The treatment of numbers
1, 2, 3, go
The stuff in the front

Generally, write out numbers from one through one hundred and all numbers beyond that are easily expressed in words—that is, two hundred but 250, eighteen hundred but 1,823. Print periodicals with a desire to conserve space often set the writing-out limit at “nine” or “ten,” but if you’ve got all the room in the world, words are, I’d say, friendlier-looking on the page.

1.

If in any given paragraph (or, to some eyes, on any given page) one particular number mandates the use of numerals, then all related uses of numbers should also be styled in numerals. That is, not:

The farmer lived on seventy-five fertile acres and owned twelve cows, thirty-seven mules, and 126 chickens.

but rather:

The farmer lived on seventy-five fertile acres and owned 12 cows, 37 mules, and 126 chickens.

2.

Numerals are generally avoided in dialogue. That is:

“I bought sixteen apples, eight bottles of sparkling water, and thirty-two cans of soup,” said James, improbably.

rather than

“I bought 16 apples, 8 bottles of sparkling water, and 32 cans of soup,” said James, improbably.

But don’t take your avoidance of numerals to extremes. You certainly don’t want anything that looks even vaguely like this:

“And then, in nineteen eighty-three,” Dave recounted, “I drove down Route Sixty-Six, pulled in to a Motel Six, and stayed overnight in room four-oh-two, all for the low, low price of seventeen dollars and seventy-five cents, including tax.”

2a.

Should a character say “I arrived at four thirty-two” or “I arrived at 4:32”?

Unless you are forensically reconstructing the timeline of a series of unsolved murders, a character should, please, simply say “I arrived just after four-thirty.”

And a character might well say “I left at 4:45,” and I think that looks just dandy (“I left at four forty-five,” if you absolutely must), but a character might also say “I left at a quarter to five.”

3.

It’s considered bad form to begin a sentence with a numeral or numerals.

NO: 1967 dawned clear and bright.

BETTER, THOUGH NOT GREAT: Nineteen sixty-seven dawned clear and bright.

BETTER STILL, ALBEIT TAUTOLOGICAL: The year 1967 dawned clear and bright.

EVEN BETTER: Recast your sentence so it doesn’t begin with a year.

4.

When writing of time, I favor, for example:

five A.M.

4:32 P.M.

using those pony-size capital letters (affectionately known as small caps*1) rather than the horsier A.M./P.M. or the desultory-looking a.m./p.m. (AM/PM and am/pm are out of the question.)

By the way, the likes of “6 A.M. in the morning” is a redundancy that turns up with great frequency, so I warn you against it. It’s 6 A.M. or six in the morning. You don’t need both.

5.

For years, then:

53 B.C.

A.D. 1654

You will note, please, that B.C. (“before Christ,” as I likely don’t have to remind you) is always set after the year and A.D. (the Latin anno Domini, meaning “in the year of the Lord”) before it.

Perhaps you were taught to use the non-Jesus-oriented B.C.E. (before the Common Era) and C.E. (of the Common Era). If so, note that both B.C.E. and C.E. are set after the year:

53 B.C.E.

1654 C.E.

I’ll note that, at least in my experience, writers still overwhelmingly favor B.C. and A.D., and that B.C.E. and C.E. remain about as popular, at least in the United States, as the metric system.

Just, please, make sure you get everything in the right place. Should I ever be touring the Moon,*2 you can be certain that my first order of business will be to take a Sharpie to the plaque that refers to humanity’s arrival there in “JULY 1969, A. D.”*3

6.

I refer to the years from 1960 to 1969*4 as the sixties (or, in a pinch, as the ’60s) and the streets of Manhattan from Sixtieth through Sixty-ninth as the Sixties. Some people do it the other way around, but let’s not fight about it.

Or let’s. I win.

7.

If you’re writing dates U.S.-style, note the invariable commas on either side of the year, as in:

Emma Stone was born on November 6, 1988, in Scottsdale, Arizona.

If you’re writing dates the way people just about anywhere else in the world write them, you can save up your commas for some other use:

Emma Stone was born on 6 November 1988 in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Note as well that even if your mind may be hearing “November sixth,” you don’t, in just about any context, write “November 6th.” I don’t know why; you just don’t.

8.

The use of 555 phone numbers looks just as silly*5 on the page as it sounds in movies or on television. A tiny amount of ingenuity dodges the problem.

“What’s your phone number?”

I jotted it down on a scrap of paper and handed it to her.

9.

Miscellaneously:

· Degrees of temperature (“a balmy 83 degrees”) and longitude/latitude (38°41'7.8351", and note the use not only of the degree symbol but of those austere vertical prime marks, not to be confused with stylishly curly quotation marks) are best set in numerals.

· So are biblical references to chapter and verse (Exodus 3:12, for instance).

· Except in dialogue, percentages should be expressed as numerals, though I’d urge you to use the word “percent” rather than the percentage sign—unless what you’re writing is hugely about percentages or you’re doing a math assignment, in which case feel free to write “95%” rather than “95 percent” (unless you’re doing your math homework).

· Particularly numbery things, like ball game scores (“The Yankees were up 11—2”) and Supreme Court rulings (“the 7—2 decision in the Dred Scott case”), look best expressed in numerals. Plus they give you the chance to make good use of those excellent en dashes.

10.

A crucial, crucial thing about numbers, no matter how they’re styled:

They need to be accurate.

As soon as you write something like “Here are twelve helpful rules for college graduates heading into the job market,” alert readers start counting. You’d be surprised at how many lists of twelve things contain only eleven things. This is an easy thing to overlook, but don’t. Otherwise you’ll find yourself with a chapter titled “56 Assorted Things to Do (and Not to Do) with Punctuation” that contains 55 assorted things. Because I skipped number 17. Did you notice?

SKIP NOTES

*1  In Microsoft Word you can create small caps by either typing the letters in question in lowercase, highlighting them, then hitting Command+Shift+K or, if that’s not a thing you can readily remember, typing the letters in question in lowercase, highlighting them, then heading up to the top of your screen and fiddling your way through Format and Font.

*2  You may well encounter contradicting style advice on Moon/moon (speaking of our particular one, that is), Sun/sun (ditto), and Earth/earth (the planet, not the dirt thereon). Let your context be your guide.

*3  There are a few other things wrong with that plaque, but that’s a conversation for another day.

*4  Be careful not to write “the years from 1960—1969.” If you’ve got a “from,” you need a “to.”

*5  How easy was it not to write a sentence beginning, “555 phone numbers are just as silly-looking”? Quite.