Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2003 01:32:32 -0400 From: Geek 999 Subject: Writing Lessons 3 Writing Lesson 3 by Ernie (geek999@earthlink.net) Using Numerals -------------- Numerals are the actual characters 0, 1, ..., 9. On the other hand, _numbers_ are the concepts they represent. Although the number five (to pick one example at random) is universal in all languages, even if the word differs ("cinco" in Spanish, "funf" in German, etc.), the numeral is "5" everywhere the Arabic numerals are used. I'm making this distinction because it will save confusion later. Text, such as an erotic story, often requires the use of numbers. How else could you give the height of a man, or the length of his... equipment? Yet, even if numerals are used to represent numbers, their use is governed by a series of grammatical rules, some of which I find counter-intuitive. Let's review them as they are commonly employed. 1. Numerals should be used in numbered lists to identify each item in the list. Right now I started this first item with a numeral 1. No complaints there. No one in his right mind would begin this paragraph with "One. Numerals should [...]" because it would look pedantic and, what's worse, the words for the numbers are of different lengths, making the text look odd. 2. Words can be used to express any numeric quantity. In other words, the number can be spelled out. Notice I say "can" and not "should" or "must". For example, saying that "Mike is seventeen and weighs one hundred thirty-five pounds" is absolutely correct. You just have to learn how to correctly spell the words for the numbers, that's all. Pay particular attention to the number "eight", which must never be spelled "ate". (If you ever spell "one" as "won", you deserve to sit in a corner with a dunce hat.) 3. Numerals can be used to express any numeric quantity too. So instead of the example above, you can also write "Mike is 17 and weighs 135 pounds". That too is correct. 4. Numerals must _never_ be used at the start of a paragraph or sentence. For example, starting a new paragraph with "12 hours later" is wrong; it should be written "Twelve hours later". To help you remember this rule, just imagine that the numerals are all lowercase; just as you wouldn't begin a paragraph or sentence with a word in lowercase, you shouldn't begin with a numeral either. 5. It's considered wrong to use numerals to express quantities smaller than a given threshold. That is to say, don't use numerals if the number to be expressed is less than a certain limit. The limit varies from person to person; I use 10 as the limit. Therefore, I try to never use numerals for the numbers 0 to 10. 6. Above the threshold mentioned in #5, it's better to use numerals all the time. For example, "317" is better than writing "three hundred seventeen". Are you confused yet? There's more. 7. Very large numbers expressed with low precision (such as 4,000,000) are better expressed as "4 million" or "four million", i.e., using the word "million" instead of the string of six zeroes. 8. Numbers that contain fractions are best written in numerals, even if they break rule #5. For example, we write "3.5-inch floppy" and not "three-point-five-inch floppy". Similarly, "6 1/2" is better than "six and a half". This rule has two further considerations: 8a. Never break rule #4! If you don't want to spell out the number that contains fractions, rewrite the sentence so that it doesn't begin with the number. 8b. Some character sets (such as ASCII) contain characters for 1/2, 1/4, and 3/4. Please don't use them. I can't tell you how many times I've come across stories in which these unfortunate characters have been corrupted into some symbol or another. For example, the character for 1/2 often turns up on my computer as a capital Greek letter omega. There are more rules! Let's continue. 9. The decimal mark presents problems when writing with numerals: it's a point in some places (such as the U.S.) but a comma in others (such as France). For instance, is "3,125" equivalent to "three thousand, one hundred twenty-five"? Or is it "three and one eighth"? The answer is, it depends on who is writing it. There's no simple solution to this problem except to always omit the thousands separator. Many people (particularly in Europe) simply leave a blank space, so "twenty-three thousand" would be written "23 000" without a comma or point. 10. Money amounts are better written in numerals with the proper currency symbol, if such symbol is likely to be found on most fonts. Unfortunately, this chauvinistic edict prevents writers from using the right currency symbol, reserving such honor to dollars or pesos ($), cents (o), and sterling pounds (£) only. Spell out the name of the currency unit in case of doubt! This applies particularly to the case of the Euro: it's still too new and most fonts do not have its symbol. This rule also applies to percentages. Many experts consider it wrong to use the % symbol for some reason I fail to understand. "50%" seems better than "50 percent". 11. Measurements can (and probably should) be expressed using the standard abbreviations for the corresponding units of measure -- provided that you're writing a lot of text with measurements. So instead of "9 inches" you could/should write '9 in' or even '9"', since the double quote (") is used for inches. Same with miles (mi), kilometers (kg), ounces (oz), and so on. If your story doesn't include many measurements (as erotic stories are likely to be), it's probably better to spell out the unit names. 12. Extremely large numbers cause confusion too because there is no international agreement over the meaning of the words "billion", "trillion", and so on. In the U.S., for example, "billion" is a thousand million; in Europe "billion" is a _million_ million. Fortunately, erotic stories are not likely to come across this difficulty. If you're a geek (as I am), you may be tempted to use scientific notation ("5E12" or "5x10^12"). Resist the temptation! Last but not least: 13. Please do yourself and your readers a tremendous favor and forget you ever learned Roman numerals. I wish someone would explain to me (using diagrams if necessary) why school children are still being drilled in this outmoded and inefficient numbering system and why we keep perpetuating it in monuments, century numbers, and book chapters. Is "Chapter XLVII" better than "Chapter 47"? Absolutely not. The use of Roman numerals kills brain cells in the writer's head and in the head of each one of his readers. And they add absolutely nothing of value. That's about it. One last item is the use of dashes with numbers. People often write two numbers separated by a hyphen (as in 1903-2003) to signify a range of numbers. That's fine, but you should be aware that fonts commonly have three different dashes: * The hyphen, which is what I used above. Hyphens are very short and are used to break words when you reach the end of a line, or to join two words to make a composite, such as in "good-looking". * The n-dash, which is somewhat longer than a hyphen, and is _the_ correct character to use for number ranges and the minus sign of negative numbers. If you're writing your story in plain text, however, using a hyphen is perfectly okay. * The m-dash, which is the longest, is used to break sentences and create "parenthesized" expressions. In plain text, it's common to employ two consecutive hyphens instead. Example: "This is -- and was -- the best choice". As usual, reasonable emails are welcome. Flames and rants will be ignored. *END*