- 2.7 as "two seven" instead of "two point seven"
- 0.7 as "point seven" instead of "zero point seven"
- 0.07 as "point O seven" (pronounced as in the letter 'O' rather than the digit zero)
- $19.95 as "nineteen ninety-five" instead of "nineteen dollars and ninety-five cents," and never as "nineteen point nine five dollars" or "ninenteen and ninety-five one hundredths of a dollar"
- $0.05 as "five cents" instead of "point zero five
centsdollars" or "zero point zero fivecentsdollars" - 1995 as "nineteen ninety-five" insted of "one thousand nine-hundred and ninety-five"
- 2010 as "twenty-ten" instead of "two thousand and 10" or "two thousand ten"
- (the year) '10 as "ten"
- (the year) '01 as "O-one"
- 3.05 as "three O five" instead of "three point zero five"
- 1,100 as "eleven hundred" instead of "one thousand [and] one hundred"
In many cases proper understanding of the spoken number depends on some knowledge of the context. For example a price quotes as "nineteen ninety five" could refer to $19.95 or $1995.00 and it's up to the speaker and listener to understand what is the correct figure based on a reasonable price range for the item in question. If it's a DVD it probably refers to the $19.95, if it's a used car then one would assume the price is $1995.00. The words "dollars" and "cents" are often omitted, except when something costs less than a dollar. I'm not sure if this is handled the same way outside of the US, or in different parts of the country.
In textbooks and other materials dashes and decimals are often used to separate different sections. For example section seven of chapter two is often written as either "2.7" or "2-7" and in either case a teacher might tell his class to "read section two-seven tonight." "Two point seven" or "two dash seven" might also be used, but I don't think I've ever heard "two hyphen seven" for 2-7. English speakers will also often replace thousand with "k" (from kilo) or "grand" or "G's." So you might hear someone say "She made 80 G's last year." I assume the G should be capitalized since this is how we normally refer to a letter by itself, but not the k since it is not capitalized in the SI system (as in kg for kilogram).
How would speakers of other languages commonly deal with the examples I've listed? Is it different from the "proper" way of reading the number? Are there other unique or interesting cases where number or digits are treated differently? Are there any English uses I've missed, or ones I've listed that you disagree with? This is certainly not an comprehensive list, just some things I was thinking about today when my math instructor was talking about tonight's assignment.
July 15 2010, 19:38:24 UTC 1 year ago
Verizon does!
July 15 2010, 19:49:08 UTC 1 year ago
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July 15 2010, 19:40:40 UTC 1 year ago
point zero five cents would be 1/20 of a penny instead of five cents though
July 15 2010, 19:42:29 UTC 1 year ago
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July 15 2010, 19:57:39 UTC 1 year ago
2.7: never, ever "two seven". The same for 19.95 and 3.05
$0.05: surely that is zero point zero dollars, not zero point zero cents? And what's improper about calling five cents, five cents? Missing out the point would be hideously ambiguous, and as the convention is to say "thirty-four" for 34 and "point three four" for 0.34, "two seven" would probably be interpreted as 0.27. I have my own confusion with decimals but that's due to having a partly French education, and French uses a comma for decimals and a point as a separator for thousands.
As for "the year '10" as "ten", if it's short for "2010" the only question is whether it's "two thousand and ten" or "twenty ten", and I've never come across anybody calling 1995 anything but "nineteen ninety five".
Most of these are short ways of writing in numerals things that are standard as words in speech, and here in the UK in legal documents numbers are written as both numerals and words: eg "One thousand five hundred and sixty-four pounds fifty pence (£1,564.50)". Earlier documents often give the date in words, not numbers, e.g. "The twenty-fifth day of June Eighteen hundred and seventy-five". And nobody would refer to the Battle of Hastings as happening in "One thousand and sixty-six" rather than "Ten sixty-six".
July 15 2010, 22:12:29 UTC 1 year ago
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July 15 2010, 20:05:45 UTC 1 year ago
I think you mean "point zero five dollars." There's another symbol that would be read as "cents."
I've never heard something like 2.7 said out loud as "two seven."
July 15 2010, 23:10:19 UTC 1 year ago
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July 15 2010, 21:14:00 UTC 1 year ago
I know in the abstract that there are ways to indicate decimals and fractions in Tagalog, but I don't know what they are because all my math classes took place in English, and I don't believe I've ever heard anyone use them in everyday life. I do know how to say large numbers in Tagalog, but EVERYONE thinks it's just too long and clunky to be worth the trouble.
15 = labing-lima (Tagalog)
15 years old = singkwenta anyos (Spanish-derived)
20 = dalawampu (Tagalog)
20 pesos = bente (Spanish-derived)
25 = dalawampu't lima (Tagalog)
a 25-centavo coin (or 25 pesos) = bente-singko (Spanish-derived)
80 = walumpu (Tagalog)
80 years old = otsenta anyos (Spanish-derived)
80 pesos = otsenta pesos (Spanish-derived)
1,500 = one thousand five hundred (English)
2,000 = dalawang daan (Tagalog)
the year 2000 = two thousand (English)
20,000 - dalawampung daan (Tagalog) OR twenty thousand (English)
(in elementary school we were forced to memorize dates in Tagalog -- "isang libo, walong daan, siyam na pu't walo", literally "one thousand eight hundred ninety-eight," is 1898 -- but NOBODY does that in real life.)
When using English (for all those fractions/decimals/complicated numbers), we seem to tend to use what you consider "mathematical style" rather than your examples of "common speech."
July 15 2010, 21:25:35 UTC 1 year ago
July 15 2010, 22:23:14 UTC 1 year ago
the year 2000 = two thousand (English)
20,000 - dalawampung daan (Tagalog) OR twenty thousand (English)
what? daan = 100, libo = 1000 right?
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July 16 2010, 01:36:57 UTC 1 year ago
By the way, the guideline I have heard over the years was to use numbers under 15 or 20 in Tagalog. Everything else is in Spanish. But of course, English came and made a bigger mess.
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July 16 2010, 02:14:17 UTC 1 year ago
I think the way English adapted to big/unusual numbers is interesting though. Like you mentioned, depending on the context, the value of the number changes (DVD vs car). Lately a friend of mine has been talking about buying a house, and he always talks about houses by only stating the thousands number, such as "That house is one-fifty." (That house has an asking price of $150,000.)
July 16 2010, 03:12:10 UTC 1 year ago
89,667 - 八万九千六百六十七 (ba wan-jiu qian-liu bai-liu shi-qi) literally means, eight ten thousands, nine thousands, six hundreds, six tens and seven.
July 16 2010, 03:05:08 UTC 1 year ago
July 16 2010, 06:42:23 UTC 1 year ago
I have my GPS set in French and it says things like "zéro virgule sept" ("zero comma seven") for "O.7" (since the French use commas to separate decimals). I would read it in English as "7 tenths of a mile" or maybe "point seven miles". Obviously I'm not sure if the GPS speaks completely idiomatic French though. ;)
July 16 2010, 13:45:44 UTC 1 year ago
My guess is quite possibly not. My mother's American GPS reads the B1253 in the UK as "B one thousand two hundred fifty-three" rather than "B one two five three", which is, I think, what people say. (At least, it's what my family says.)
July 16 2010, 15:47:11 UTC 1 year ago
July 16 2010, 10:10:45 UTC 1 year ago
And then often the speaker or ad will drop the denomination altogether and simply say something like "a sweet deal in the low 300's..."
July 16 2010, 16:41:10 UTC 1 year ago
We don't drop zeros. "Zero deux" usually always means 0.2. If we're talking about money, we'd rather say "vingt centimes/cents" than "zero vingt euros".
I don't know how it is now but before the euro, portuguese people usually expressed medium to large sums in "contos" (short for "contos de réis"), not escudos. One conto = 1000 escudos. And my grandparents kept expressing smaller sums in thousands of réis The portuguese real was replaced in 1911! Some french people were still counting in old francs (dead since 1960) when the country switched to the euro.
20 escudos = 20,000 réis (= 0.10 €)
20 contos = 20,000 escudos = 20,000,000 réis (= 100 €)
July 26 2010, 21:07:59 UTC 1 year ago
The basic shape in your first example is used for prices, and sometimes measures of distance... I think you can use it for anything in metres and centimetres, but it's the only way to go when talking about how tall someone is. I mean, if someone asked how tall I was, I'd answer "ein Meter sechzig", or "einssechzig", but not, like some English-speakers I've seen using metric, "eins komma sechs Meter".
A common way to name sums of money including sense is something like "zehn Euro achtunsiebzig", leaving out mention of "cents".