Decimals
Farhad
According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, in decimals, the
numbers after the period are read digit by digit. For instance, 25.15
is read as twenty five point one five. Do native English speakers
follow this pattern of reading decimals? You don't read the above
number as twenty five point fifteen? If you do, which way of reading
decimals is the norm?
Farhad
Ian Jackson
<ac898864-9ba9-401c...@w6g2000yqw.googlegroups.com>,
Farhad <fvaf...@gmail.com> writes
>Hi All,
>
>According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, in decimals, the
>numbers after the period are read digit by digit. For instance, 25.15
>is read as twenty five point one five. Do native English speakers
>follow this pattern of reading decimals?
That is the 'usual' way to read it (certainly in BrE).
>You don't read the above
>number as twenty five point fifteen?
This form is occasionally heard. I think that stock market reports often
use it. Maybe it's because they only use two decimal places? But it's
not 'scientific', and arguably non-standard.
>If you do, which way of reading
--
Ian
bert
I read them the way that your Dictionary says,
and so does everybody else that I know of. If
I heard someone read "fifteen" or "sixty-five"
I would tell them they were doing it wrongly.
(native UK English speaker)
--
Garrett Wollman
Farhad <fvaf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, in decimals, the
>numbers after the period are read digit by digit. For instance, 25.15
>is read as twenty five point one five.
I was taught, back in elementary school, that the correct way to read
25.15 was "twenty-five and fifteen (one-)hundredths". Nobody ever
does that (except when writing a check). In that form, the unit can
go either before the "and" or after the fraction.
>Do native English speakers follow this pattern of reading decimals?
>You don't read the above number as twenty five point fifteen?
Some people do, some people don't. When talking about amounts of
money, the decimal point is nearly always implied, so "$25.15" would
be read as "twenty-five fifteen" -- but "$25,150" could well be read
"twenty-five one fifty". A baseball player with a .280 batting
average would be a "two-eighty hitter", because batting averages are
by definition less than unity and are always given to three decimal
places. Likewise, a team that had won 25 games and lost 15 could be
described as "ten games over five hundred", which would be written
"ten games over .500". (And the win-loss ratio, represented in three
decimals, is often called the "winning percentage" even though it's
not a percentage at all.)
In math, science, and engineering, each digit will normally be spoken
individually, but there are some circumstances in which particular,
standard quantities may be read the other way; I would not be
surprised to hear a large fraction of the speed of light read as
"point ninety-seven c". In this context, there is normally a written
form that is the authoritative version, so some imprecision in speech
may be accepted. (I have never, for example, heard a value written
with the parenthesis notation for uncertainty actually read as such.)
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wol...@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
Don Phillipson
news:ac898864-9ba9-401c...@w6g2000yqw.googlegroups.com...
> According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, in decimals, the
> numbers after the period are read digit by digit. For instance, 25.15
> is read as twenty five point one five. Do native English speakers
> follow this pattern of reading decimals?
Yes, exactly so. This is how we were taught at British schools in the
1950s. The number 1,234.56 is one thousand, two hundred and thirty four,
point five six. No other method of speaking decimals was recognized (at
school, in the army, at work etc.)
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
James Silverton
>> According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, in
>> decimals, the numbers after the period are read digit by
>> digit. For instance, 25.15 is read as twenty five point one
>> five. Do native English speakers follow this pattern of
>> reading decimals?
> Yes, exactly so. This is how we were taught at British
> schools in the 1950s. The number 1,234.56 is one thousand, two
> hundred and thirty four, point five six. No other method of
> speaking decimals was recognized (at school, in the army, at
> work etc.)
I've never used anything but, say, 28, point 2, three 3, seven 7 for
28.237 and I find "twenty eight point 2 hundred thirty seven" to be most
annoying.
--
James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland
Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
Mark Brader
> According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, in decimals, the
> numbers after the period are read digit by digit. For instance, 25.15
> is read as twenty five point one five. Do native English speakers
> follow this pattern of reading decimal
I do, and I consider it normal.
> You don't read the above number as twenty five point fifteen?
Some people do that. I consider it wrong.
A third style sometimes used is "twenty-five fifteen". This is common
usage% for monetary amounts, i.e. 25.15 dollars or pounds or euros, etc.;
it's sometimes heard work non-monetary amounts as well, but typically
only when the number of decimal places is known.
% - In North America it's the only common usage; in Britain they may
give the name of the currency in the middle, i.e. "twenty-five pounds
fifteen".
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "Show that 17x17 = 289. Generalise this result."
m...@vex.net | -- Carl E. Linderholm
My text in this article is in the public domain.
John Varela
In ordinary conversation I would say that as "twenty-five point
fifteen". If reading values from a meter for someone to write down,
speaking against a noisy background, or similar circumstances, I
would say "two five point one five".
Mixing styles, "twenty-five point one five," sounds odd to me. If
precision and clear enunciation are needed in the fractional part,
why not in the whole-number part as well?
--
John Varela
Trade NEWlamps for OLDlamps for email
R H Draney
The "one five" isn't "fifteen" of something (well, it's fifteen *hundredths*,
but you're supposed to turn your nose up at fractions by the time you reach this
stage) the way that "two five" is "twenty-five"...just as "one five base eight"
isn't "fifteen" (and if you read it as "thirteen" they'll put you in the
"special" class)....r
--
A pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
An optometrist asks whether you see the glass
more full like this?...or like this?
Peter Moylan
> On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 20:26:30 UTC, Farhad <fvaf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, in decimals, the
>> numbers after the period are read digit by digit. For instance, 25.15
>> is read as twenty five point one five. Do native English speakers
>> follow this pattern of reading decimals? You don't read the above
>> number as twenty five point fifteen? If you do, which way of reading
>> decimals is the norm?
>
> In ordinary conversation I would say that as "twenty-five point
> fifteen".
What about 25.015?
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> Hi All,
>
> According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, in decimals, the
> numbers after the period are read digit by digit. For instance, 25.15
> is read as twenty five point one five. Do native English speakers
> follow this pattern of reading decimals? You don't read the above
> number as twenty five point fifteen? If you do, which way of reading
> decimals is the norm?
I have always used the digit-by-digit since early childhood (i.e. since
I was taught the decimal notation). While I recognize that not everyone
does, my impression is that most of the people who don't are either
non-native speakers or people who have little understanding of the
underlying meaning. (John Varela is obviously an exception, and
doubtless there are others.)
--
athel
Bertel Lund Hansen
> I've never used anything but, say, 28, point 2, three 3, seven 7 for
> 28.237 and I find "twenty eight point 2 hundred thirty seven" to be most
> annoying.
Damn, it's hard to be a non-native speaker in this thread.
--
Bertel, Denmark
Ian Jackson
Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org> writes
>John Varela wrote:
>> On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 20:26:30 UTC, Farhad <fvaf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, in decimals, the
>>> numbers after the period are read digit by digit. For instance, 25.15
>>> is read as twenty five point one five. Do native English speakers
>>> follow this pattern of reading decimals? You don't read the above
>>> number as twenty five point fifteen? If you do, which way of reading
>>> decimals is the norm?
>> In ordinary conversation I would say that as "twenty-five point
>>fifteen".
>
>What about 25.015?
>
circumstances and personal choice, there are several 'correct' ways of
saying the number before the decimal point. "150" might be said as "one
five oh", "one five zero" (in a scientific environment), "one fifty" or
"one hundred and fifty".
However, after the decimal point, it's rare to hear anything other than
each number being said individually. It's one of those things which
'stand out' if I hear it said differently. I notice it being used
sometimes in stock market reports, and assume that it is a 'jargon'
format.
--
Ian
Mark Brader
> However, after the decimal point, it's rare to hear anything other than
> each number being said individually. It's one of those things which
> 'stand out' if I hear it said differently. I notice it being used
> sometimes in stock market reports, and assume that it is a 'jargon'
> format.
That's the second time in this thread someone has mentioned stock
quotes as if they were something special. They're just pronounced
like other monetary amounts -- "twenty-five fifteen".
--
Mark Brader | "Basically, what I *really* want is the USENET of the 1980s
Toronto | without the high long-distance telephone bills."
m...@vex.net | --Wayne Brown
Ian Jackson
<m...@vex.net> writes
>"Farhad":
>> According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, in decimals, the
>> numbers after the period are read digit by digit. For instance, 25.15
>> is read as twenty five point one five. Do native English speakers
>> follow this pattern of reading decimal
>
>I do, and I consider it normal.
>
>> You don't read the above number as twenty five point fifteen?
>
>Some people do that. I consider it wrong.
>
>A third style sometimes used is "twenty-five fifteen". This is common
>usage% for monetary amounts, i.e. 25.15 dollars or pounds or euros, etc.;
>it's sometimes heard work non-monetary amounts as well, but typically
>only when the number of decimal places is known.
>
>% - In North America it's the only common usage; in Britain they may
>give the name of the currency in the middle, i.e. "twenty-five pounds
>fifteen".
In Britain, the format "twenty-five pounds fifteen" is standard. Don't N
Americans say "twenty-five dollars fifteen"? I never realised that they
didn't.
--
Ian
J. J. Lodder
> On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 20:26:30 UTC, Farhad <fvaf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi All,
> >
> > According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, in decimals, the
> > numbers after the period are read digit by digit. For instance, 25.15
> > is read as twenty five point one five. Do native English speakers
> > follow this pattern of reading decimals? You don't read the above
> > number as twenty five point fifteen? If you do, which way of reading
> > decimals is the norm?
>
> In ordinary conversation I would say that as "twenty-five point
> fifteen". If reading values from a meter for someone to write down,
> speaking against a noisy background, or similar circumstances, I
> would say "two five point one five".
This may to be one of the things that American inherited from Dutch.
Dutch pi is 'drie komma veertien', to two decimal places,
never 'drie komma een vier'.
Longer strings of decimals are spoken digit by digit hough.
Best,
Jan
Ian Jackson
<m...@vex.net> writes
>Ian Jackson:
>> However, after the decimal point, it's rare to hear anything other than
>> each number being said individually. It's one of those things which
>> 'stand out' if I hear it said differently. I notice it being used
>> sometimes in stock market reports, and assume that it is a 'jargon'
>> format.
>
>That's the second time in this thread someone has mentioned stock
>quotes as if they were something special. They're just pronounced
>like other monetary amounts -- "twenty-five fifteen".
Not on the BBC. At 5.30pm each day, on Radio 4, there's a brief
report/commentary called "Up Shares, Down Shares", and any reference to
prices or movements is usually in the "something point fifteen" format.
I've been hearing this for years, and have assumed that this is how they
talk in the money business.
--
Ian
Ian Jackson
<nos...@de-ster.demon.nl> writes
they? That's something we don't do in Britain (unless maybe for some
'catchy' radio or TV advert). [It's not usual in America either (I
think).] We usually give the numbers individually, typically in blocks
of 4, 3 and 4 (landline), and 5, 3 and 3 for mobiles.
--
Ian
ke...@cam.ac.uk
I think it is occasionally used where there is actually a subsidiary unit which
is one-hundredth of the main unit - as in pounds and pence. But it strikes me
as illiterate.
Katy
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
>in Britain they may
>give the name of the currency in the middle, i.e. "twenty-five pounds
>fifteen".
I think it's more likely that in the UK we think of that as an omission
of the second unit, "pence".
"Twenty-five pounds fifteen" is a short form of "twenty-five pounds
fifteen pence". In speech "pence" is very likely to be said as "pee" for
the letter "p", the symbol of the unit.
This accords with the markings on the money. Paper money and some coins
are labelled as representing one or more Pounds. The other coins are
labelled as representing one or more Pence.
Coins of values less than a pound are not marked as, for example, "0.10
Pound".
Historical comment:
At least in "Twenty-five pounds fifteen" a unit is mentioned. In "the
good old days" before decimalisation a frequently used amount was said
as "twelve and six" with no units mentioned. That was a short form of
"twelve shillings and sixpence".
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
My landline number is given as 3, 4 and 4. That is the Totally Official
way of giving it as used in British Telecom's directories.
I live in Northern Ireland where the (area) Code for the whole place is
028.
One of my sisters lives in Southend. Her (area) Code is 01702. The rest
of the number is given in the directory as 6 digits without a space. I
suspect she would say it as 3 and 3.
I remember (when I can!) and give my mobile number as 3, 4 and 4. That
is perhaps a personal quirk.
Nick Spalding
<7682959curbq848g0...@4ax.com>
on Sun, 23 Aug 2009 12:20:16 +0100:
And in those days "Twenty-five pounds fifteen" would have meant "Twelve
pounds fifteen shillings".
--
Nick Spalding
BrE/IrE
Peter Moylan
> And in those days "Twenty-five pounds fifteen" would have meant "Twelve
> pounds fifteen shillings".
Ah, the good old days, when twenty-five pounds was really worth
twelve pounds.
J. J. Lodder
> In message <1j4w7aw.6f...@de-ster.xs4all.nl>, J. J. Lodder
> <nos...@de-ster.demon.nl> writes
> >John Varela <OLDl...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >
> >> On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 20:26:30 UTC, Farhad <fvaf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> > Hi All,
> >> >
> >> > According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, in decimals, the
> >> > numbers after the period are read digit by digit. For instance, 25.15
> >> > is read as twenty five point one five. Do native English speakers
> >> > follow this pattern of reading decimals? You don't read the above
> >> > number as twenty five point fifteen? If you do, which way of reading
> >> > decimals is the norm?
> >>
> >> In ordinary conversation I would say that as "twenty-five point
> >> fifteen". If reading values from a meter for someone to write down,
> >> speaking against a noisy background, or similar circumstances, I
> >> would say "two five point one five".
> >
> >This may to be one of the things that American inherited from Dutch.
> >Dutch pi is 'drie komma veertien', to two decimal places,
> >never 'drie komma een vier'.
> >Longer strings of decimals are spoken digit by digit hough.
> >
> But the Dutch (and others) 'pair' numbers in telephone numbers, don't
> they?
Sometimes, depends on the number of digits being even.
It is sometimes forced, despite the number being odd.
Thus the area code for Rotterdam (010)
will usually by pronounced as 'nul tien'.
Six digit subscriber numbers are usually pronounced in pairs.
For seven digit subscriber numbers
(introduced with universal 10 digit phone numbers in 1993)
are mixed case.
Sometimes pronounced as indivual digits in a 3 2 2 pattern,
sometimes grouped as 1 2 2 2, with the 2s taken together.
010 456 78 90 will become
nul tien vier zesenvijftig, achtenzeventig, negentig.
> That's something we don't do in Britain (unless maybe for some
> 'catchy' radio or TV advert). [It's not usual in America either (I
> think).] We usually give the numbers individually, typically in blocks
> of 4, 3 and 4 (landline), and 5, 3 and 3 for mobiles.
Typical British muddle.
10-digit phone numbers (all in) should be suficient,
(as they are in France and in the Netherlands for example)
Jan
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
wrote:
>Nick Spalding wrote:
>
>> And in those days "Twenty-five pounds fifteen" would have meant "Twelve
>> pounds fifteen shillings".
>
>Ah, the good old days, when twenty-five pounds was really worth
>twelve pounds.
The value of the currency changed considreably during the typing of the
sentence. That's a positively Zimbabwean rate of inflation.
James Hogg
In Denmark they all consist of just eight digits, grouped in
pairs. I have to admire speakers of Danish and Dutch for their
ability to get numbers right even when they say them in the wrong
order. A number like 27 52 83 46 is spoken in the following
order: 7 20 2 50 3 80 6 40.
--
James
Nick Spalding
on Sun, 23 Aug 2009 22:10:09 +1000:
> Nick Spalding wrote:
>
> > And in those days "Twenty-five pounds fifteen" would have meant "Twelve
> > pounds fifteen shillings".
>
> Ah, the good old days, when twenty-five pounds was really worth
> twelve pounds.
Whoops!
--
Nick Spalding
BrE/IrE
Ian Jackson
<Jas....@gOUTmail.com> writes
>In Denmark they all consist of just eight digits, grouped in
>pairs. I have to admire speakers of Danish and Dutch for their
>ability to get numbers right even when they say them in the wrong
>order. A number like 27 52 83 46 is spoken in the following
>order: 7 20 2 50 3 80 6 40.
>
You've missed out the 'ands'. Surely '7 and 20' etc? Nevertheless, very
disconcerting to an English (or French) speaker!
--
Ian
Ian Jackson
<spal...@iol.ie> writes
At the risk of digressing further, I can't recall that we said ever
"Twenty-five pounds fifteen" (with no "shillings" at the end).
For pounds and shillings only, I'm sure that we said it in full. [I have
a sneaky feeling that we maybe did say "Twenty-five pounds ten" but
that's all.]
The only time we omitted the shillings was when we said "Twenty pounds
fifteen and six" (a final "pence" being optional). After decimalisation,
I think it came as quite a shock when we started to use the "X pound Y"
format.
--
Ian
Ian Jackson
<spal...@iol.ie> writes
Of course, �25/15/- is �25-75 in today's parlance. But it was probably
worth something like at least �250 when we changed (15 Feb 1971).
--
Ian
James Hogg
quote:
Yes, I deliberately left out the "ands" to increase the
disconcertion factor.
--
James
Ildhund
> At least in "Twenty-five pounds fifteen" a unit is mentioned. In
> "the good old days" before decimalisation a frequently used amount
> was said as "twelve and six" with no units mentioned. That was a
> short form of "twelve shillings and sixpence".
... and an even shorter form was 12/6d, starting life as 12s6d in
the days when the 's' was a long, thin abbreviation for 'solidus'
(sing. or pl.), which joins up nicely with the fraction thread.
--
Noel
Ian Jackson
>Quoth Ian Jackson <ianREMOVET...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk>, and I
>quote:
>
>>In message <ked29590n8vjajkmj...@4ax.com>, James Hogg
>><Jas....@gOUTmail.com> writes
>>
>>
>>>In Denmark they all consist of just eight digits, grouped in
>>>pairs. I have to admire speakers of Danish and Dutch for their
>>>ability to get numbers right even when they say them in the wrong
>>>order. A number like 27 52 83 46 is spoken in the following
>>>order: 7 20 2 50 3 80 6 40.
>>>
>>You've missed out the 'ands'. Surely '7 and 20' etc? Nevertheless, very
>>disconcerting to an English (or French) speaker!
>
>Yes, I deliberately left out the "ands" to increase the
>disconcertion factor.
>
--
Ian
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> [ ... ]
>> Typical British muddle.
>> 10-digit phone numbers (all in) should be suficient,
>> (as they are in France and in the Netherlands for example)
>
> In Denmark they all consist of just eight digits, grouped in
> pairs. I have to admire speakers of Danish and Dutch for their
> ability to get numbers right even when they say them in the wrong
> order. A number like 27 52 83 46 is spoken in the following
> order: 7 20 2 50 3 80 6 40.
Typical Danish and Dutch muddle.
However, at least they don't give people much of an exercise in mental
arithmetic, unlike French telephone numbers: mine (partially
obfuscated) is zero four four twenty eleven sixty ten nine four tweny
eight zero six four twenty eight. When I ask people to dictate a phone
number over the phone they often start (unprompted) dictating it as
zero four nine one... when they hear my accent.
I don't know about Denmark or the Netherlands, but in France you need
to dial all ten digits even if you are phoning next door.
Another area where systematization would be helpful is in the treatment
of the zero that begins most ten-digit numbers in Europe. In most
countries you must omit this if it is preceded by a country code, but,
just to confuse everyone, not everywhere. To dial a number in Italy,
for example, you don't drop the zero.
--
athel
J. J. Lodder
One must admit that the French are more logical about it,
with their four tenty ten nine,
Jan
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
Lodder) wrote:
>Ian Jackson <ianREMOVET...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> That's something we don't do in Britain (unless maybe for some
>> 'catchy' radio or TV advert). [It's not usual in America either (I
>> think).] We usually give the numbers individually, typically in blocks
>> of 4, 3 and 4 (landline), and 5, 3 and 3 for mobiles.
>
>Typical British muddle.
>10-digit phone numbers (all in) should be suficient,
>(as they are in France and in the Netherlands for example)
>
UK landline phone numbers are 11-digits starting with a 0.
It is customary to quote the 11 digits with the digits that give the
area code as a group.
As I said in another post, my area code is 028 and one of my sisters' is
01702. It is conventional to write the area code in parentheses.
(028) nnnn nnnn
(01702) nnnnnn
This is done so that it is clear which part of the number is the area
code. The code can be omitted when calling from a landline within the
same area.
When calling to or from a mobile phone the full 11 digits must be used.
J. J. Lodder
> On 2009-08-23 14:33:16 +0200, James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com> said:
>
> > [ ... ]
>
> >> Typical British muddle.
> >> 10-digit phone numbers (all in) should be suficient,
> >> (as they are in France and in the Netherlands for example)
> >
> > In Denmark they all consist of just eight digits, grouped in
> > pairs. I have to admire speakers of Danish and Dutch for their
> > ability to get numbers right even when they say them in the wrong
> > order. A number like 27 52 83 46 is spoken in the following
> > order: 7 20 2 50 3 80 6 40.
>
> Typical Danish and Dutch muddle.
>
> However, at least they don't give people much of an exercise in mental
> arithmetic, unlike French telephone numbers: mine (partially
> obfuscated) is zero four four twenty eleven sixty ten nine four tweny
> eight zero six four twenty eight. When I ask people to dictate a phone
> number over the phone they often start (unprompted) dictating it as
> zero four nine one... when they hear my accent.
>
> I don't know about Denmark or the Netherlands, but in France you need
> to dial all ten digits even if you are phoning next door.
Yes, that's a French muddle.
(going back to their being so Paris-centered)
Area codes no longer exist in France,
and you always have to dial all digits.
(even though the leading zero carries no information)
The Netherlands still has optional area codes,
that can be omited when you are in town.
Jan
Jerry Friedman
<ianREMOVETHISjack...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <sbSdnbQBK4vSDg3XnZ2dnUVZ_qedn...@vex.net>, Mark Brader
We might say either "one seventy-nine" or "a dollar seventy-nine", but
for amounts over $2 it's always "twenty-five fifteen" and the like, in
my experience.
--
Jerry Friedman
Jerry Friedman
wrote:
> On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 20:26:30 UTC, Farhad <fvafa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi All,
>
> > According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, in decimals, the
> > numbers after the period are read digit by digit. For instance, 25.15
> > is read as twenty five point one five. Do native English speakers
> > number as twenty five point fifteen? If you do, which way of reading
> > decimals is the norm?
>
> I was taught the decimal notation). While I recognize that not everyone
> does, my impression is that most of the people who don't are either
> non-native speakers or people who have little understanding of the
> underlying meaning. (John Varela is obviously an exception, and
> doubtless there are others.)
Most of my students use the "point fifteen" form, and I think I've
heard, for example, 2.589 as "two point five eighty-nine". Some of
them understand the underlying meaning perfectly well.
I often try to explain to them why I think it's a bad idea.
--
Jerry Friedman
R H Draney
It hasn't been all that long since stock prices were conventionally quoted in
fractions: halves, quarters, eighths and occasionally "teenies"....r
--
A pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
An optometrist asks whether you see the glass
more full like this?...or like this?
R H Draney
>
>But the Dutch (and others) 'pair' numbers in telephone numbers, don't
>they? That's something we don't do in Britain (unless maybe for some
>'catchy' radio or TV advert). [It's not usual in America either (I
>think).] We usually give the numbers individually, typically in blocks
>of 4, 3 and 4 (landline), and 5, 3 and 3 for mobiles.
Paired digits are pretty common in the US when reciting phone numbers, although
it's not normally extended to the prefix: 388-1391 is "three eight eight,
thirteen ninety-one"....
This can be cumbersome with some numbers...my mother's number, when she was
still living, was 890-9089, but I could never get anyone to understand it as
"eight ninety, ninety eighty-nine"....r
Jerry Friedman
<ianREMOVETHISjack...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <1j4w7aw.6f55f9gop4...@de-ster.xs4all.nl>, J. J. Lodder
> <nos...@de-ster.demon.nl> writes
>
> >John Varela <OLDla...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> >> On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 20:26:30 UTC, Farhad <fvafa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> > Hi All,
>
> >> > According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, in decimals, the
> >> > numbers after the period are read digit by digit. For instance, 25.15
> >> > is read as twenty five point one five. Do native English speakers
> >> > follow this pattern of reading decimals? You don't read the above
> >> > number as twenty five point fifteen? If you do, which way of reading
> >> > decimals is the norm?
>
> >> In ordinary conversation I would say that as "twenty-five point
> >> fifteen". If reading values from a meter for someone to write down,
> >> speaking against a noisy background, or similar circumstances, I
> >> would say "two five point one five".
>
> >This may to be one of the things that American inherited from Dutch.
> >Dutch pi is 'drie komma veertien', to two decimal places,
> >never 'drie komma een vier'.
> >Longer strings of decimals are spoken digit by digit hough.
>
> But the Dutch (and others) 'pair' numbers in telephone numbers, don't
> they? That's something we don't do in Britain (unless maybe for some
> 'catchy' radio or TV advert). [It's not usual in America either (I
> think).] We usually give the numbers individually, typically in blocks
> of 4, 3 and 4 (landline), and 5, 3 and 3 for mobiles.
We do often pair numbers in phone numbers. Ours are a block of three
followed by a block of four (same for mobile and landline). 123-4567
(not a possible number, I believe) would be read either digit by
digit, or "one two three, forty-five sixty-seven".
--
Jerry Friedman usually says phone numbers digit by digit.
J. J. Lodder
> On Sun, 23 Aug 2009 14:15:46 +0200, nos...@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J.
> Lodder) wrote:
>
> >Ian Jackson <ianREMOVET...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >> That's something we don't do in Britain (unless maybe for some
> >> 'catchy' radio or TV advert). [It's not usual in America either (I
> >> think).] We usually give the numbers individually, typically in blocks
> >> of 4, 3 and 4 (landline), and 5, 3 and 3 for mobiles.
> >
> >Typical British muddle.
> >10-digit phone numbers (all in) should be suficient,
> >(as they are in France and in the Netherlands for example)
> >
>
> UK landline phone numbers are 11-digits starting with a 0.
Yes, that's the muddle.
Ten digits (including the leading 0) should do.
> It is customary to quote the 11 digits with the digits that give the
> area code as a group.
>
> As I said in another post, my area code is 028 and one of my sisters' is
> 01702. It is conventional to write the area code in parentheses.
>
> (028) nnnn nnnn
> (01702) nnnnnn
5-digit area codes serve no useful purpose.
The had their usefulnes in the days
of electro-mechanical rotary switches.
The Netherlands had them until 1993. [1]
Even villages of a few hundred had an area code of their own.
Nobody ever missed them after they were abolished.
All area codes are now 3-digits (big towns)
or 4-digit for rural areas. (incuding the 0)
> This is done so that it is clear which part of the number is the area
> code. The code can be omitted when calling from a landline within the
> same area.
>
> When calling to or from a mobile phone the full 11 digits must be used.
Of course, it can be anywhere,
so not forcing the area code for mobiles
is error-prone.
But why 11 digits? Surely there can't be a real need
for a billion mobiles in the UK.
A mere hundred million should do,
Jan
[1] Which is why <www.familienaam.nl> gives you the distribution
of family names in 1993
Ian Jackson
<nos...@de-ster.demon.nl> writes
followed "four twenty nine/ten/eleven etc". I believe the logical ones
are the Belgians, and do/did use 'septante' and 'nonante' - but do/did
they use 'octante'?
--
Ian
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> Peter Duncanson (BrE) <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>
>> [ ... ]
>> This is done so that it is clear which part of the number is the area
>> code. The code can be omitted when calling from a landline within the
>> same area.
>>
>> When calling to or from a mobile phone the full 11 digits must be used.
>
> Of course, it can be anywhere,
> so not forcing the area code for mobiles
> is error-prone.
> But why 11 digits? Surely there can't be a real need
> for a billion mobiles in the UK.
> A mere hundred million should do,
Maybe now, but think of the future. In some countries (Finland, for
example, I think) there are more than 1 mobile phones per head of the
population), and when the UK catches up with Finland it won't take long
before a mere hundred million won't be enough.
In the UK they had to change all the phone numbers in London twice in
the 1990s because the first change didn't produce as many numbers as
they needed by the end of the decade. Having had their fingers burned
once they probably don't want it to happen again.
--
athel
Athel Cornish-Bowden
<ianREMOVET...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk> said:
> In message <1j4wra9.gfy...@de-ster.xs4all.nl>, J. J. Lodder
> <nos...@de-ster.demon.nl> writes
[�... ]
>>
> Logical? The French? They've got "sixty ten nine/ten/eleven/twelve
> etc", followed "four twenty nine/ten/eleven etc". I believe the logical
> ones are the Belgians, and do/did use 'septante' and 'nonante' - but
> do/did they use 'octante'?
I don't think "octante" is used in standard Belgian French, but it has
some dialect existence in Switzerland (along with "huitante").
--
athel
Ian Jackson
<acor...@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr> writes
Ah.... I was thinking of 'huitante'.
--
Ian
Athel Cornish-Bowden
<ianREMOVET...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk> said:
> In message <qbb295l6hcls10br9...@4ax.com>, Nick Spalding
> <spal...@iol.ie> writes
[ ... ]
>>>
>>
>> And in those days "Twenty-five pounds fifteen" would have meant "Twelve
>> pounds fifteen shillings".
>
> At the risk of digressing further, I can't recall that we said ever
> "Twenty-five pounds fifteen" (with no "shillings" at the end).
That's also my recollection.
>
> For pounds and shillings only, I'm sure that we said it in full. [I
> have a sneaky feeling that we maybe did say "Twenty-five pounds ten"
> but that's all.
I can only remember using that form when the number of pounds was small
-- "two pounds ten" was common, but nothing over nine pounds, probably
nothing over about four pounds. Of course, in those days I didn't have
much occasion to talk about gigantic sums like twenty five pounds and
ten shillings.
--
athel
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> Peter Duncanson (BrE) wrote...
>
>> At least in "Twenty-five pounds fifteen" a unit is mentioned. In "the
>> good old days" before decimalisation a frequently used amount was said
>> as "twelve and six" with no units mentioned. That was a short form of
>> "twelve shillings and sixpence".
>
> ... and an even shorter form was 12/6d,
shorter still was 12/6, and that's what I remember as being most common.
> starting life as 12s6d in the days when the 's' was a long, thin
> abbreviation for 'solidus' (sing. or pl.), which joins up nicely with
> the fraction thread.
Many years ago I saw a quiz question that asked in what context the old
long s was still in everyday use. Answers weren't given and it wasn't
until long afterwards that I realized that that was what the shilling
sign was.
--
athel
ke...@cam.ac.uk
Ian Jackson <ianREMOVET...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In message <qbb295l6hcls10br9...@4ax.com>, Nick Spalding
><spal...@iol.ie> writes
>>
>>pounds fifteen shillings".
>
>At the risk of digressing further, I can't recall that we said ever
>"Twenty-five pounds fifteen" (with no "shillings" at the end).
But I'm sure we said "one pound ten".
Katy
the Omrud
Or, in that case, "thirty shillings".
--
David
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
An if you were a man buying a suit "fifty shillings".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty_Shilling_Tailors
http://www.frithphotos.com/shop/photo-prints/black-white-prints/a3-framed-black-white-print/B134003x/create
or http://tinyurl.com/ox6y8c
Nick Spalding
on Sun, 23 Aug 2009 16:57:10 GMT:
Do you remember the Fifty Shilling Tailor?
--
Nick Spalding
BrE/IrE
Reinhold {Rey} Aman
[...]
What's her number now?
--
~~~ Reinhold {Rey} Aman ~~~
James Silverton
>> ke...@cam.ac.uk wrote:
> >> In article <jHQjAUBM...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk>,
> >> Ian Jackson <ianREMOVET...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >>> In message <qbb295l6hcls10br9...@4ax.com>,
> >>> Nick Spalding <spal...@iol.ie> writes
> >>>> And in those days "Twenty-five pounds fifteen" would have
> >>>> meant "Twelve pounds fifteen shillings".
> >>> At the risk of digressing further, I can't recall that we
> >>> said ever "Twenty-five pounds fifteen" (with no
> >>> "shillings" at the end).
> >>
> >> But I'm sure we said "one pound ten".
>>
>> Or, in that case, "thirty shillings".
> Do you remember the Fifty Shilling Tailor?
That was a long time ago. It's hard to believe but true that you could
have a Burton's suit made in 1955 for the current equivalent of about
GBP 50.
--
James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland
Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
John Varela
wrote:
> John Varela wrote:
> > On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 20:26:30 UTC, Farhad <fvaf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, in decimals, the
> >> numbers after the period are read digit by digit. For instance, 25.15
> >> is read as twenty five point one five. Do native English speakers
> >> follow this pattern of reading decimals? You don't read the above
> >> number as twenty five point fifteen? If you do, which way of reading
> >> decimals is the norm?
> >
> > In ordinary conversation I would say that as "twenty-five point
> > fifteen".
>
> What about 25.015?
When we get beyond hundredths things necessarily change. I wouldn't
attempt to say anything other than "three point one four one five
nine two six..." because there is no denominator for that fraction,
is there? In your example, depending on the context, I might say
"twenty-five point oh fifteen" or "twenty-five point oh one five" or
(least likely) "twenty-five point zero one five". If I were in a
conversation about a machine drawing in which all the dimensions
were taken to thousandths of an inch, I would expect "three point
one twenty-five" to be as common as "three point one two five".
"Three and one twenty-five" might also be heard.
--
John Varela
Trade NEWlamps for OLDlamps for email
R H Draney
>
>R H Draney falt:
>[...]
>> ...my mother's number, when she was still living, was 890-9089,
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>What's her number now?
Unlisted, but the number I gave has been returned to the phone company for
re-use....r
Mark Brader
> Many years ago I saw a quiz question that asked in what context the old
> long s was still in everyday use. Answers weren't given and it wasn't
> until long afterwards that I realized that that was what the shilling
> sign was.
That and, of course, the integral sign.
--
Mark Brader "Sixty years old and still pulling a train!
Toronto That's more than I can say about most
m...@vex.net people I know." -- Frimbo
Mark Brader
>>> That's the second time in this thread someone has mentioned stock
>>> quotes as if they were something special. They're just pronounced
>>> like other monetary amounts -- "twenty-five fifteen".
Ian Jackson:
>> Not on the BBC. ... any reference to prices or movements is usually
>> in the "something point fifteen" format.
Oh. Well, you might have said so.
R.H. Draney:
> It hasn't been all that long since stock prices were conventionally quoted in
> fractions: halves, quarters, eighths and occasionally "teenies"....r
They weren't just *quoted* in fractions: they *were* in such fractions.
That is, fractions of a dollar, with denominators always in powers of 2,
as R.H. implies. (Did British exchanges similarly use fractions of a
pound rather than shillings and pence?) Apparently the idea was that
this made it easier for traders to compromise on a price halfway between
what the seller was asking and what a buyer was offering.
This practice ended on the Toronto and New York exchanges a few years
apart, I think about 10 years ago. Prices are now in dollars and cents.
--
Mark Brader "All this government stuff, in other words,
Toronto is not reading matter, but prefabricated
m...@vex.net parts of quarrels." -- Rudolf Flesch
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Nick Spalding
on Sun, 23 Aug 2009 13:43:28 -0400:
> Nick wrote on Sun, 23 Aug 2009 18:24:12 +0100:
>
> >> ke...@cam.ac.uk wrote:
> > >> In article <jHQjAUBM...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk>,
> > >> Ian Jackson <ianREMOVET...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > >>> In message <qbb295l6hcls10br9...@4ax.com>,
> > >>> Nick Spalding <spal...@iol.ie> writes
> > >>>> And in those days "Twenty-five pounds fifteen" would have
> > >>>> meant "Twelve pounds fifteen shillings".
> > >>> At the risk of digressing further, I can't recall that we
> > >>> said ever "Twenty-five pounds fifteen" (with no
> > >>> "shillings" at the end).
> > >>
> > >> But I'm sure we said "one pound ten".
> >>
> >> Or, in that case, "thirty shillings".
>
> > Do you remember the Fifty Shilling Tailor?
>
>
> That was a long time ago. It's hard to believe but true that you could
> have a Burton's suit made in 1955 for the current equivalent of about
> GBP 50.
The name survived, latterly abbreviated to FST, until 1954.
<http://books.google.ie/books?id=VDXLRs0_zdwC&pg=PT307&lpg=PT307&dq=%22fifty+shilling+tailor%22&source=bl&ots=JCqRwy8m8r&sig=7lNCJrvzwJ0x6JkCFeI4M5TOUQw&hl=en&ei=5nqRSuWaK4TNjAfVqdD8DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5#v=onepage&q=%22fifty%20shilling%20tailor%22&f=false>
<http://tinyurl.com/lxc3on>
--
Nick Spalding
BrE/IrE
Jeffrey Turner
When counting out exact change at a cash register, I may say something
like "three dollars and forty seven cents," but never without the
"and...cents."
--Jeff
--
The comfort of the wealthy has always
depended upon an abundant supply of
the poor. --Voltaire
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> Athel Cornish-Bowden:
>> Many years ago I saw a quiz question that asked in what context the old
>> long s was still in everyday use. Answers weren't given and it wasn't
>> until long afterwards that I realized that that was what the shilling
>> sign was.
>
> That and, of course, the integral sign.
Yes, though I doubt that the quiz I saw was directly at the sort of
people who'd know what an integral sign was.
--
athel
J. J. Lodder
Belgians (that is, les Wallons) are not that logical,
Jan
--
"Voici mon ami Belge, le druide Septantesix" (Panoramix)
Maria Conlon
> We do often pair numbers in phone numbers. Ours are a block of three
> followed by a block of four (same for mobile and landline). 123-4567
> (not a possible number, I believe) would be read either digit by
> digit, or "one two three, forty-five sixty-seven".
I give my land line as xxx [pause] xxxx, but for out-of-area callers, I
also give the first three digits, which is the Area Code: xxx [pause]
xxx [pause] xxxx. ("Out-of-area" includes my cousin who lives no more
than two miles down the road, but has a different Area Code. I'm sure
the same situation applies to many AUEers. Every "area" ends somewhere.)
When I give my cell number (mobile), I always give the full ten digits,
but add "don't put a "1" at the beginning if you call me from a cell
phone."*
* The '1' is used only from land lines. This all goes back to
technicalities for the phone company of old ("Ma Bell"), which required
(and still requires) the initial "1" for calling any US Area Code not
the same as the caller's. For cell phones, the "1" is not required and
not wanted when making a call. Some folks are unaware of this,
especially if they only recently got a cell phone. (If any of the
foregoing is wrong, I hope someone will post the correct information.)
--
Maria Conlon
Mike Barnes
>On Sun, 23 Aug 2009 14:15:46 +0200, nos...@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J.
>Lodder) wrote:
>
>>Ian Jackson <ianREMOVET...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>> That's something we don't do in Britain (unless maybe for some
>>> 'catchy' radio or TV advert). [It's not usual in America either (I
>>> think).] We usually give the numbers individually, typically in blocks
>>> of 4, 3 and 4 (landline), and 5, 3 and 3 for mobiles.
>>
>>Typical British muddle.
>>10-digit phone numbers (all in) should be suficient,
>>(as they are in France and in the Netherlands for example)
>>
>
>UK landline phone numbers are 11-digits starting with a 0.
>
>area code as a group.
>
>As I said in another post, my area code is 028 and one of my sisters' is
>01702. It is conventional to write the area code in parentheses.
>
> (028) nnnn nnnn
> (01702) nnnnnn
>
>code. The code can be omitted when calling from a landline within the
>same area.
There's an exception, which is actually a mistake that's so widespread
that many people don't recognise it for what it is. Londoners often
write, for instance:
(0207) 234 5678
This is wrong. The number is actually:
(020) 7234 5678
The short form of this number is 7234 5678. Dialling 234 5678 won't
work. You also see (0208), which is another non-existent area code.
(History: In 2000, two area codes, 0171 and 0181 were combined to make
the 020 area code. Many phone users haven't realised this yet. They
think the area codes changed to 0207 and 0208.)
--
Mike Barnes
Cheshire, England
Robert Bannister
> James Silverton skrev:
>
>> I've never used anything but, say, 28, point 2, three 3, seven 7 for
>> 28.237 and I find "twenty eight point 2 hundred thirty seven" to be most
>> annoying.
>
> Damn, it's hard to be a non-native speaker in this thread.
>
Don't worry. It's difficult enough surviving as a native speaker.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
Shirley it would always be "twenty-four ninety-nine".
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
> On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 19:54:39 -0500, m...@vex.net (Mark Brader) wrote:
>
>> in Britain they may
>> give the name of the currency in the middle, i.e. "twenty-five pounds
>> fifteen".
>
> of the second unit, "pence".
>
> "Twenty-five pounds fifteen" is a short form of "twenty-five pounds
> fifteen pence". In speech "pence" is very likely to be said as "pee" for
> the letter "p", the symbol of the unit.
>
> This accords with the markings on the money. Paper money and some coins
> are labelled as representing one or more Pounds. The other coins are
> labelled as representing one or more Pence.
>
> Coins of values less than a pound are not marked as, for example, "0.10
> Pound".
>
> Historical comment:
> At least in "Twenty-five pounds fifteen" a unit is mentioned. In "the
> good old days" before decimalisation a frequently used amount was said
> as "twelve and six" with no units mentioned. That was a short form of
> "twelve shillings and sixpence".
>
However, "Twenty-five pounds fifteen" would have meant twenty-five
pounds fifteen shillings back then.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
> In message <qbb295l6hcls10br9...@4ax.com>, Nick Spalding
> <spal...@iol.ie> writes
>> <7682959curbq848g0...@4ax.com>
>> on Sun, 23 Aug 2009 12:20:16 +0100:
>>
>>> On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 19:54:39 -0500, m...@vex.net (Mark Brader) wrote:
>>>
>>> >in Britain they may
>>> >give the name of the currency in the middle, i.e. "twenty-five pounds
>>> >fifteen".
>>>
>>> I think it's more likely that in the UK we think of that as an omission
>>> of the second unit, "pence".
>>>
>>> "Twenty-five pounds fifteen" is a short form of "twenty-five pounds
>>> fifteen pence". In speech "pence" is very likely to be said as "pee" for
>>> the letter "p", the symbol of the unit.
>>>
>>> This accords with the markings on the money. Paper money and some coins
>>> are labelled as representing one or more Pounds. The other coins are
>>> labelled as representing one or more Pence.
>>>
>>> Coins of values less than a pound are not marked as, for example, "0.10
>>> Pound".
>>>
>>> Historical comment:
>>> At least in "Twenty-five pounds fifteen" a unit is mentioned. In "the
>>> good old days" before decimalisation a frequently used amount was said
>>> as "twelve and six" with no units mentioned. That was a short form of
>>> "twelve shillings and sixpence".
>>
>> pounds fifteen shillings".
>
> At the risk of digressing further, I can't recall that we said ever
> "Twenty-five pounds fifteen" (with no "shillings" at the end).
>
> a sneaky feeling that we maybe did say "Twenty-five pounds ten" but
> that's all.]
I agree that "ten" was more common than with other amounts, but if you
went to Petticoat Lane or any other market, you'd have found the bare
"fifteen" pretty normal. Perhaps, however, less so with numbers of
shillings below 10 and I suppose the elevenpence or elevenpence three
farthings had already infiltrated anyway, so you'd be more likely to
hear "only twenty-four paand nineteen and elevenpence"
>
> The only time we omitted the shillings was when we said "Twenty pounds
> fifteen and six" (a final "pence" being optional). After decimalisation,
> I think it came as quite a shock when we started to use the "X pound Y"
> format.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
> Athel Cornish-Bowden <acor...@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr> wrote:
>
>> On 2009-08-23 14:33:16 +0200, James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com> said:
>>
>>> [ ... ]
>>>> Typical British muddle.
>>>> 10-digit phone numbers (all in) should be suficient,
>>>> (as they are in France and in the Netherlands for example)
>>> pairs. I have to admire speakers of Danish and Dutch for their
>>> ability to get numbers right even when they say them in the wrong
>>> order. A number like 27 52 83 46 is spoken in the following
>>> order: 7 20 2 50 3 80 6 40.
>>
>> However, at least they don't give people much of an exercise in mental
>> arithmetic, unlike French telephone numbers: mine (partially
>> obfuscated) is zero four four twenty eleven sixty ten nine four tweny
>> eight zero six four twenty eight. When I ask people to dictate a phone
>> number over the phone they often start (unprompted) dictating it as
>> zero four nine one... when they hear my accent.
>>
>> I don't know about Denmark or the Netherlands, but in France you need
>> to dial all ten digits even if you are phoning next door.
>
> Yes, that's a French muddle.
> (going back to their being so Paris-centered)
> Area codes no longer exist in France,
> and you always have to dial all digits.
> (even though the leading zero carries no information)
>
> The Netherlands still has optional area codes,
> that can be omited when you are in town.
We've gone a step further since they added a few digits: now I can dial
many numbers in South Australia without using an area code, although
I'll need one to reach some country town in my own state.
--
Rob Bannister
Western Australia
Garrett Wollman
Mark Brader <m...@vex.net> wrote:
>They weren't just *quoted* in fractions: they *were* in such fractions.
>That is, fractions of a dollar, with denominators always in powers of 2,
>as R.H. implies. (Did British exchanges similarly use fractions of a
>pound rather than shillings and pence?) Apparently the idea was that
>this made it easier for traders to compromise on a price halfway between
>what the seller was asking and what a buyer was offering.
Doesn't the LSE use (new) pence? As to your historical question, the
answer appears to be shillings and pence; in the Sherlock Holmes story
"The Stockbroker's Clerk", a bank-robber posing as a potential
employer quizzes Holmes's client, Hall Pycroft, on the day's prices
for three stocks. He gives two of them as spreads: "one hundred and
five to one hundred and five and a quarter" and "seven to seven and
six".
In the U.S., the fractional-dollar system also helped to maintain
dealers' spreads when making a market in a stock; there was strong
opposition to moving from eighths to sixteenths, because dealers make
most of their money on the spread. If I recall correctly, when
decimal pricing was first introduced, the minimum price increment (a
"tick") was something more than a cent. (I forget whether it was two
or five cents.)
Nowadays we see some (low-priced) stocks priced in hundredths of a
cent,[1] and the broker-dealers don't seem to be going out of business
in huge numbers, even in a tough economy.
-GAWollman
[1] Sirius XM Radio is currently quoted at 0.6023, for example, and
I've seen it in thousandths of a cent before.
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wol...@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
Garrett Wollman
Mike Barnes <mikeb...@bluebottle.com> wrote:
>There's an exception, which is actually a mistake that's so widespread
>that many people don't recognise it for what it is. Londoners often
>write, for instance:
>
> (0207) 234 5678
>
>This is wrong. The number is actually:
>
> (020) 7234 5678
Actually, the number is actually +44 20 72 34 56 78, written out in
full. The access code, 0, is not a part of the number, even though
the domestic written form of the number is usually written that way.
(Just as some people in World Zone 1 will give their numbers as
1-617-374-1234, although a small subset may actually be aware that
they are in "country" code 1.) The E.164 standard prescribes a
maximum length of fifteen digits for worldwide interoperability, which
includes the country code but does not include any local dialing
prefix. Some countries allow more digits; these numbers (usually
behind PBXes) are not internationally dialable.
-GAWollman
Garrett Wollman
Maria Conlon <conlo...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>* The '1' is used only from land lines. This all goes back to
>technicalities for the phone company of old ("Ma Bell"), which required
>(and still requires) the initial "1" for calling any US Area Code not
>the same as the caller's.
Not so. In places with mandatory 10-digit dialing (basically anywhere
with an "overlay" area code), local calls between area codes are
dialed NPA+7D. 1+ is generally required in those places that did not
have a lot of panel or crossbar exchanges; in the old days, long
before "interchangeable NPAs", it was only step-by-step exchanges
that, for technical reasons, needed the extra 1+ (originally 112+) to
route the call to a toll switch or toll operator, and those are the
places where the practice of "toll alerting" took hold. I wouldn't be
surprised if there were places (New York City comes to mind) where any
domestic call could be dialed NPA+10D -- certainly that would have
been the case when DDD was introduced, since NYC was all crossbar and
panel back then.
In places that still have 7-digit local dialing, inter-area calls must
be made 1+NPA+7D (or 0+NPA+7D if anybody still does that) because area
codes and exchange codes are no longer distinguishable, and interdigit
timeouts (used to resolve ambiguities in countries with European-style
signaling) are not permitted for domestic calls here.
Peter Moylan
> I have to admire speakers of Danish and Dutch for their
> ability to get numbers right even when they say them in the wrong
> order. A number like 27 52 83 46 is spoken in the following
> order: 7 20 2 50 3 80 6 40.
Don't forget that English speakers used to do the same thing. Even
now we still use the "four and twenty" form when counting
blackbirds or virgins.
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
Peter Moylan
> In message <1j4wra9.gfy...@de-ster.xs4all.nl>, J. J. Lodder
> <nos...@de-ster.demon.nl> writes
>> One must admit that the French are more logical about it,
>> with their four tenty ten nine,
>>
> Logical? The French? They've got "sixty ten nine/ten/eleven/twelve etc",
> followed "four twenty nine/ten/eleven etc". I believe the logical ones
> are the Belgians, and do/did use 'septante' and 'nonante' - but do/did
> they use 'octante'?
Not the Belgians, although they understand it. Apparently "octante" is
an obsolescent word, although I had a feeling that it was used in
Canadian French. "Huitante" is current in some parts of Switzerland.
Mark Brader
>> They weren't just *quoted* in fractions: they *were* in such fractions.
>> That is, fractions of a dollar, with denominators always in powers of 2,
>> as R.H. implies. (Did British exchanges similarly use fractions of a
>> pound rather than shillings and pence?)
Garrett Wollman:
> ...the answer appears to be shillings and pence; in the Sherlock Holmes
> story "The Stockbroker's Clerk", a bank-robber posing as a potential
> employer quizzes Holmes's client, Hall Pycroft, on the day's prices
> for three stocks. He gives two of them as spreads: "one hundred and
> five to one hundred and five and a quarter"
Curious. This is different in *both* versions I have access to.
In my own copy of the story, which is in a book reproducing the
original Strand Magazine publication, it's "one hundred and six
and a quarter to one hundred and five and seven-eighths". But in
the Project Gutenberg text I checked, it's "a hundred and six and
a quarter to a hundred and five and seven-eighths". Note that both
of these versions give the higher number first, which seems very
peculiar to me; perhaps this was an error that was corrected in the
edition Garrett checked.
> and "seven to seven and six".
The Project Gutenberg copy hyphenates "seven-and-six", but my copy
doesn't.
Anyway, note that the first example appears to be pounds and fractions
(without shillings or pence) while the second one appears to be
shillings and pence (without pounds). So maybe the correct answer
is that the historical practice depended on the value of the shares.
On the other hand, this is a work of fiction and not a financial
column, so it's also possible that Doyle just got it wrong.
--
Mark Brader | "... you're a detective, you like mysteries."
Toronto | "I hate mysteries. What I like are *solutions*."
m...@vex.net | --Barbara Paul, "The Apostrophe Thief"
Garrett Wollman
Mark Brader <m...@vex.net> wrote:
>Curious. This is different in *both* versions I have access to.
>In my own copy of the story, which is in a book reproducing the
>original Strand Magazine publication, it's "one hundred and six
>and a quarter to one hundred and five and seven-eighths". But in
>the Project Gutenberg text I checked, it's "a hundred and six and
>a quarter to a hundred and five and seven-eighths". Note that both
>of these versions give the higher number first, which seems very
>peculiar to me; perhaps this was an error that was corrected in the
>edition Garrett checked.
The edition that I used was the annotated, erm, The Annotated(R),
version edited by William S. Baring-Gould. He notes that some
editions have the bid and ask prices reversed.
I suspect that this edition used the version of the texts which was
current at the time of Conan Doyle's death, and it may even say so
somewhere in the voluminous notes. It's also possible, given that
(AmE) Sherlockian/(BrE) Holmesian studies were given serious attention
even during the author's lifetime, that someone noticed the error and
he responded with a correction.
-GAWollman
Peter Moylan
> J. J. Lodder wrote:
>> The Netherlands still has optional area codes,
>> that can be omited when you are in town.
>
> We've gone a step further since they added a few digits: now I can dial
> many numbers in South Australia without using an area code, although
> I'll need one to reach some country town in my own state.
My father still has the phone number that we had when I was a child,
<mumble> years ago. Back then, it was a three-digit number. Since
then a few digits have been prepended, but I don't let that confuse
me. I just think of the extra seven digits as the area code.
In fact, now that I think of it, the original phone number was
seven letters plus three digits. That's because you had to tell the
operator the name of the town, which is seven letters long.
(Of course, to call my father from somewhere in his own small town,
you have to dial eight digits.)
Ian Jackson
Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org> writes
>James Hogg wrote:
>
>> I have to admire speakers of Danish and Dutch for their
>> ability to get numbers right even when they say them in the wrong
>> order. A number like 27 52 83 46 is spoken in the following
>> order: 7 20 2 50 3 80 6 40.
>
>Don't forget that English speakers used to do the same thing. Even
>now we still use the "four and twenty" form when counting
>blackbirds or virgins.
>
use'. However, the "four and twenty" form is still heard in some parts
of Britain. In the 1960s, in Hertfordshire, a friend's father (aged
about 50) used it. That is the first time I had heard it 'used in
earnest', and considered it to be rather quaint.
I don't think I heard it again until 2000, when I found that a 60
year-old works colleague from Essex (only a few miles from the friend's
father) also tended to use it. It's obviously a dialect thing, and not
quite dead.
--
Ian
J. J. Lodder
> Robert Bannister wrote:
> > J. J. Lodder wrote:
>
> >> The Netherlands still has optional area codes,
> >> that can be omited when you are in town.
> >
> > We've gone a step further since they added a few digits: now I can dial
> > many numbers in South Australia without using an area code, although
> > I'll need one to reach some country town in my own state.
>
> My father still has the phone number that we had when I was a child,
> <mumble> years ago. Back then, it was a three-digit number. Since
> then a few digits have been prepended, but I don't let that confuse
> me. I just think of the extra seven digits as the area code.
I justed missed having a three digit phone number not so long ago.
They ran out, so it became four digit. (with a 5-digit area code)
I would still have had it, with two extra digits,
if I hadn't moved. (and with a 4-digit area code)
> In fact, now that I think of it, the original phone number was
> seven letters plus three digits. That's because you had to tell the
> operator the name of the town, which is seven letters long.
>
> (Of course, to call my father from somewhere in his own small town,
> you have to dial eight digits.)
In my case it really was four digits to dial the neighbours,
Jan
J. J. Lodder
Bertel Lund Hansen
> In Denmark they all consist of just eight digits, grouped in
> pairs.
There is no obligation to group them in any special way. Two at a
time is quite common, but 2-3-3 or 4-4 is also seen.
> I have to admire speakers of Danish and Dutch for their
> ability to get numbers right even when they say them in the wrong
> order.
Germans do the same. It's a question of habit. A bit strange
perhaps that Norway and Sweden have straightforward numbers
considering how much alike the three Nordic countries are in
other respects.
> A number like 27 52 83 46 is spoken in the following
> order: 7 20 2 50 3 80 6 40.
We say: seven and twenty, two and fifty, three and eighty, six
and forty.
--
Bertel, Denmark
Ildhund
Or, more precisely and much more bafflingly for the uninitiated,
'seven and twenty, two and half three t(imes twenty), three and four
t(imes twenty), six and four (twenty)'. The bits in brackets are
unspoken and understood (by some). There are convoluted historical
reasons why 'tyve' sometimes means ten and sometimes twenty.
Denmark follows the non-British standard which dictates that 'half
three' means 2-1/2 and not 3-1/2. If you turn up for a date at half
eight at 20.30, you'll arrive an hour late and find the bird has
flown. And Danes are just as likely to say 'fourteen thirty' as
'half three'.
--
Noel
Bertel Lund Hansen
> Or, more precisely and much more bafflingly for the uninitiated,
> 'seven and twenty, two and half three t(imes twenty), three and four
> t(imes twenty), six and four (twenty)'.
Close. In fact it's not "half three t(imes twenty)" but
"halfthird times twenty". "Halfthird" was a common name for 2�,
and similar with other half-numbers. Today we only have
"halvanden" (half second) remaining from such forms aside from
the remnants in our ten-names.
> Denmark follows the non-British standard which dictates that 'half
> three' means 2-1/2 and not 3-1/2. If you turn up for a date at half
> eight at 20.30, you'll arrive an hour late and find the bird has
> flown.
Yep.
> And Danes are just as likely to say 'fourteen thirty' as 'half three'.
Hm, I'm not sure that is correct, but we are familiar with the
24-hour notation. In everyday language where no misunderstanding
is possible, we use the informal style.
--
Bertel, Denmark
Mike Barnes
>In article <D$8GdG8DA...@34klh41lk4h1lk34h3lk4h1k4.invalid>,
>Mike Barnes <mikeb...@bluebottle.com> wrote:
>>There's an exception, which is actually a mistake that's so widespread
>>that many people don't recognise it for what it is. Londoners often
>>write, for instance:
>>
>> (0207) 234 5678
>>
>>This is wrong. The number is actually:
>>
>> (020) 7234 5678
>
>Actually, the number is actually +44 20 72 34 56 78, written out in
>full.
Actually if you try rewriting my words using that number, you'll find
that you can't. That's because the +44 form isn't the number "written
out in full", it's the international form of the number. Both forms omit
some information, and one isn't a fuller version of the other. I used
the national form because it's the only form that illustrates the point
I was making.
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
The number "written out in full" for the benefit of both UK and non-UK
readers would be, by rule or convention, +44(0)20 7234 5678.
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> Robert Bannister wrote:
>> J. J. Lodder wrote:
>
>>> The Netherlands still has optional area codes,
>>> that can be omited when you are in town.
>>
>> We've gone a step further since they added a few digits: now I can dial
>> many numbers in South Australia without using an area code, although
>> I'll need one to reach some country town in my own state.
>
> My father still has the phone number that we had when I was a child,
> <mumble> years ago. Back then, it was a three-digit number...
I think in the early days of telephones it was quite common to have
1-digit numbers in very small places.
Tomorrow night one of the French TV channels will be showing (very
late, unfortunately) Polanski's film Cul de Sac (a British film,
despite its name, with Donald Pleasance, Fran�oise Dorl�ac (the sister
of Catherine Deneuve, later killed in an accident), and a very young
Jacqueline Bisset) that I much enjoyed when it was new, back in the
1960s. At one point one of the gangsters who have taken refuge in an
exceedingly remote place off the coast of Northumberland need to use
the telephone of the people they are terrorizing, and when asked for a
number to phone back to the gangster is incredulous to see that it is
just 1.
We shan't stay up until 3 AM in order to watch it (especially as we
have to drive to Dijon the next day), but will record a videocassette.
--
athel
Peter Moylan
> Robert Bannister <rob...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>> We've gone a step further since they added a few digits: now I can dial
>> many numbers in South Australia without using an area code, although
>> I'll need one to reach some country town in my own state.
>
> Doesn't sound very consistent,
It's consistent once you know that the area covered by an area code
has expanded.
My phone number used to be (049) 67 xxxx. Then it was changed to
(02) 4967 xxxx. Under the old rules, 02 was the area code for Sydney,
and 049 was the area code for Newcastle. Because Sydney was running
short of numbers, and wanted to take some belonging to smaller
towns, the rules were changed such that 02 was the area code for the
entire state, not just for Sydney. That meant that even the smallest
rural towns had to switch to 8-digit local numbers. Previously the
small towns had long area codes and short local numbers. Now
everyone in the state has 8-digit numbers.
(For a while after the change, Newcastle people used to say that their
area code was (0249). This logic no longer works, because the
newer Newcastle numbers don't start with 49.)
Similar changes happened all around the country, hence Rob's comments
about South Australian numbers. In fact - because population levels
are very different from one state to another - the change was
justified only for Victoria and New South Wales, the states having
the two largest cities. Making the change uniformly across the
country was presumably neater in the mind of some jobsworth.
The change potentially affects telephone exchange technology. Australia
has traditionally had "step-by-step" interpretation of phone numbers,
with short area codes for large cities and long area codes (but short
local numbers) for small communities. If you know any coding theory,
you'll recognise this as the coding method that miminises the
dialling effort. This is a logic that engineers understand
but bureaucrats don't. Since the change, all local numbers are the
same length (8 digits), and all area codes have the same length (the
prefix 0 followed by one digit). This would, in principle, allow a
switch to the simpler decoding system used for the fixed-length
North American phone numbers. In practice, the mean time to upgrade
a telephone exchange is something like 50 years. By the time my
local exchange is upgraded we'll probably have a completely new
numbering system.
(I say "we", but in fact I don't expect to have a phone 50 years
from now.)
The change has also affected user perception of the charging system.
Once upon a time, a telephone call to a local number was untimed
and cheap, and a call to a different area code was timed and more
expensive. That's still true, to some extent, but now the boundaries
of what is considered "local" no longer coincide with the area code
boundaries. Thus, you can dial what looks like a local number, and
end up paying through the nose.
That latter factor doesn't affect me. I've switched to a VoIP
phone system, so all my "long-distance" phone calls are billed as
local and untimed. For now the main users of VoIP are those
geeks who understand the technology, but gradually I've been
advising my friends on how to cut their phone bills, and no
doubt other VoIP users are spreading the news the same way. Of
course it's because of things like this that the phone companies
are expending more effort on mobile phones, where the charges
are much higher, the legislative requirements a lot less
restrictive, and the users much less aware that they're being
overcharged.
Leslie Danks
The code for London used to be 01, which was followed by a three-digit
exchange code and a four-digit subscriber code. The international version
of the above number would then be +44(0)1 234 5678. I can remember the
changeover (20 years ago ???), when "01" was replaced with "0207"
or "0208", depending on whether the subscriber was in "inner" or "outer"
London. Despite the explicit instructions that the new format of the
number was (020) 7234 5678, many people went for (0207) 234 5678,
demonstrating yet again that attempts to change the habits of a lifetime
by decree often fail.
I can also vaguely remember a time when the three-digit exchange code was
made up of letters, normally representative of the exchange (ELMbridge,
for example). I presume the four-digit subscriber code remained the same
when this change took place, though I cannot remember.
--
Les (BrE)
Mike Barnes
That isn't "in full" because it doesn't indicate the extent of the area
code, which was actually the topic I was addressing.
That number "written out in full" is two numbers, like this:
(020) 7234 5679
+44 20 7234 5679
Inconvenient I know, but there it is. There is no single format for a UK
phone number that handles local, national, and international dialling
methods [*]. I think you'll find that the same goes for most other
countries. The format that you suggest is (and I exaggerate slightly,
but not much) meaningful only to people who don't actually need to be
told both formats, because they know enough to deduce either one from
the other. It's certainly not "by rule" and is widely deprecated.
[*] I realise that you lose nothing by dialling another UK number in its
international form, even if the destination is local.
Peter Moylan
>> <mikeb...@bluebottle.com> wrote:
>> The number "written out in full" for the benefit of both UK and non-UK
>> readers would be, by rule or convention, +44(0)20 7234 5678.
>
> That isn't "in full" because it doesn't indicate the extent of the area
> code, which was actually the topic I was addressing.
>
> That number "written out in full" is two numbers, like this:
>
> (020) 7234 5679
> +44 20 7234 5679
>
> Inconvenient I know, but there it is. There is no single format for a UK
> phone number that handles local, national, and international dialling
> methods [*]. I think you'll find that the same goes for most other
> countries. The format that you suggest is (and I exaggerate slightly,
> but not much) meaningful only to people who don't actually need to be
> told both formats, because they know enough to deduce either one from
> the other. It's certainly not "by rule" and is widely deprecated.
There is, nevertheless, a widely understand convention that says
"include the zero in parentheses if you omit the country code, but
omit it if you include the country code". This convention certainly
works for the UK and Australia, and I believe that it also works for
a good many other countries. I will concede that it doesn't work
for all.
It's also worth pointing out something that many phone users don't
know: the '+' in such notations has to be replaced by an international
dialling code; and the international dialling code varies from
country to country and has to be looked up in the local phone book.
I ran into serious trouble with this in France, which has replaced
the local phone book with "look it up on your computer". Which
sounds OK, but fails with a user whose competence in the language
doesn't extend to being able to guess what sort of search terms
should be used in googling. My fluency in French is actually pretty
good, but it turns out that a level of fluency that is adequate for
conversation does not guarantee an ability to use a search engine.
Mobile phones in my country, and presumably others, allow the '+' to
be typed literally. The software in the phone will translate the
'+' to a suitable access code. (But does it work when you're
travelling across national borders? I'm not sure.) The catch is
that fixed phones don't offer the same functionality.
Maria Conlon
> Maria Conlon wrote:
>
>> * The '1' is used only from land lines. This all goes back to
>> technicalities for the phone company of old ("Ma Bell"), which
>> required
>> (and still requires) the initial "1" for calling any US Area Code not
>> the same as the caller's.
Inserting the balance of the above paragraph:
>> For cell phones, the "1" is not required and
>> not wanted when making a call. Some folks are unaware of this,
>> especially if they only recently got a cell phone. (If any of the
>> foregoing is wrong, I hope someone will post the correct
>> information.)
> Not so. In places with mandatory 10-digit dialing (basically anywhere
> with an "overlay" area code), local calls between area codes are
> dialed NPA+7D.
What does "NPA" stand for? "Area Code"?
> ....1+ is generally required in those places that did not
> have a lot of panel or crossbar exchanges;
That is probably what the case was (and is) around Detroit for land
lines. If that's changed, I'm unaware of it.
> ...in the old days, long
> before "interchangeable NPAs", it was only step-by-step exchanges
> that, for technical reasons, needed the extra 1+ (originally 112+) to
> route the call to a toll switch or toll operator, and those are the
> places where the practice of "toll alerting" took hold. I wouldn't be
> surprised if there were places (New York City comes to mind) where any
> domestic call could be dialed NPA+10D -- certainly that would have
> been the case when DDD was introduced, since NYC was all crossbar and
> panel back then.
> In places that still have 7-digit local dialing, inter-area calls must
> be made 1+NPA+7D
That is the case where I am, as I mentioned earlier (if "NPA" = Area
Code). Local calls (within one's Area Code) can be made with the basic
7-digit number (on a land line). However, cell phones are an excepton,
at least with Verizon: the numeral 1 is not to precede any area code
within the US, including "800" numbers (and area codes must be used for
all calls except those "*-extension numbers" to the Verizon office).
> ...(or 0+NPA+7D if anybody still does that) because area
> codes and exchange codes are no longer distinguishable, and interdigit
> timeouts (used to resolve ambiguities in countries with European-style
> signaling) are not permitted for domestic calls here.
Are you and I basically saying the same thing? Or do we follow different
laws/methods, being is different parts of the country? (I've forgotten
where you live, but then I've forgotten, um, lots of things.)
--
Maria Conlon, resident of southeast Michigan, near Detroit.
James Silverton
>> Are you and I basically saying the same thing? Or do we follow
> different laws/methods, being is different parts of the
> country? (I've forgotten where you live, but then I've
> forgotten, um, lots of things.)
I live in one of the many places where it is necessary to dial 10 digits
for any phone number, eg. 123-456-7890. There are still some
metropolitan areas. like San Francisco, where 7 suffice. Strangely
enough, tho' unlimited local and long distance calls in the US are
available on my Verizon phone plan, I have to dial an extra preceding 1
when calling outside the DC area.
--
James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland
Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
wrote:
>The code for London used to be 01, which was followed by a three-digit
>exchange code and a four-digit subscriber code. The international version
>of the above number would then be +44(0)1 234 5678. I can remember the
>changeover (20 years ago ???), when "01" was replaced with "0207"
>or "0208", depending on whether the subscriber was in "inner" or "outer"
>London. Despite the explicit instructions that the new format of the
>number was (020) 7234 5678, many people went for (0207) 234 5678,
>demonstrating yet again that attempts to change the habits of a lifetime
>by decree often fail.
>
When my (now late) wife and I moved into this house 36 years ago the
phone number was "Belfast nnnnnn" (six digits). The area code was 0232.
When answering the phone she spoke that number.
Even after the area code changed to 028 and the 6 digits became 8, "90nn
nnnn", she continued to say it with exchange name and 6 digits.
>I can also vaguely remember a time when the three-digit exchange code was
>made up of letters, normally representative of the exchange (ELMbridge,
>for example). I presume the four-digit subscriber code remained the same
>when this change took place, though I cannot remember.
One old number I have checked and mentioned here before was the famous
number for the London Metropolitan police at Scotland Yard: Whitehall
1212.
http://www.mpa.gov.uk/contact/policecontacts/
1212 is retained: 020 7230 1212
230 does not match the letters WHI on either the old or new association
of letters with digits.
There is a separate number for non-urgent enquiries that also ends with
1212: 0300 123 1212.
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<conlo...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>What does "NPA" stand for? "Area Code"?
According to:
http://cheshirecatalyst.com/intl.html
NPA (Numbering Plan Area, known as an Area Code)
John Varela
<rob...@bigpond.com> wrote:
> Jerry Friedman wrote:
> > On Aug 23, 2:41 am, Ian Jackson
> > <ianREMOVETHISjack...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >> In message <sbSdnbQBK4vSDg3XnZ2dnUVZ_qedn...@vex.net>, Mark Brader
> >> <m...@vex.net> writes
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>> "Farhad":
> >>>> According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, in decimals, the
> >>>> numbers after the period are read digit by digit. For instance, 25.15
> >>>> is read as twenty five point one five. Do native English speakers
> >>>> follow this pattern of reading decimal
> >>> I do, and I consider it normal.
> >>>> You don't read the above number as twenty five point fifteen?
> >>> Some people do that. I consider it wrong.
> >>> A third style sometimes used is "twenty-five fifteen". This is common
> >>> usage% for monetary amounts, i.e. 25.15 dollars or pounds or euros, etc.;
> >>> it's sometimes heard work non-monetary amounts as well, but typically
> >>> only when the number of decimal places is known.
> >>> % - In North America it's the only common usage; in Britain they may
> >>> give the name of the currency in the middle, i.e. "twenty-five pounds
> >>> fifteen".
> >> In Britain, the format "twenty-five pounds fifteen" is standard. Don't N
> >> Americans say "twenty-five dollars fifteen"? I never realised that they
> >> didn't.
> >
> > We might say either "one seventy-nine" or "a dollar seventy-nine", but
> > for amounts over $2 it's always "twenty-five fifteen" and the like, in
> > my experience.
>
> Shirley it would always be "twenty-four ninety-nine".
When a price ends in 95 or 99 cents I always round off to the next
dollar.
--
John Varela
Trade NEWlamps for OLDlamps for email
Mike Barnes
I agree with all of that. Welcome back, btw.
Regarding "travelling across national borders", if you're in one country
and the base station is in another, and the two countries have different
international dialling prefixes, "+" will still work fine. This is
because the translation is done in the base station, not in the phone.
What won't work fine in these circumstances is dialling a number in the
country you're in without the country code. Most phones have an optional
display of the base station identification, which in my experience often
tells you its default country code. Or you could just punch in the
country code regardless if you're near a border.
Mark Brader
> Despite the explicit instructions that the new format of the
> number was (020) 7234 5678, many people went for (0207) 234 5678,
> demonstrating yet again that attempts to change the habits of a lifetime
> by decree often fail.
For values of "a lifetime" that equal 5 or 10 years.
Until 1990 the area code (in British style) for all of London was 01.
From 1990 to 1995, inner London was 071 and outer London was 081.
From 1995 to 2000, inner London was 0171 and outer London was 0181.
Since 2000, all of London has been 020.
--
Mark Brader | "Oh, sure, you can make anything sound sleazy if you,
Toronto | you know, tell it exactly the way it happened."
m...@vex.net | -- Bruce Rasmussen: "Anything But Love"
J. J. Lodder
> Leslie Danks:
> > Despite the explicit instructions that the new format of the
> > number was (020) 7234 5678, many people went for (0207) 234 5678,
> > demonstrating yet again that attempts to change the habits of a lifetime
> > by decree often fail.
>
> For values of "a lifetime" that equal 5 or 10 years.
>
> Until 1990 the area code (in British style) for all of London was 01.
> From 1990 to 1995, inner London was 071 and outer London was 081.
> From 1995 to 2000, inner London was 0171 and outer London was 0181.
> Since 2000, all of London has been 020.
I did indeeed see some rants
about the stupidity of British Telecom,
for just this reason,
Jan
Evan Kirshenbaum
> "twenty-five one fifty". A baseball player with a .280 batting
> average would be a "two-eighty hitter", because batting averages are
> by definition less than unity and are always given to three decimal
> places.
Less than or equal to. Someone whose average is 1.000 is "batting a
thousand".
> Likewise, a team that had won 25 games and lost 15 could be
> described as "ten games over five hundred", which would be written
> "ten games over .500". (And the win-loss ratio, represented in
> three decimals, is often called the "winning percentage" even though
> it's not a percentage at all.)
Many (most?) "percentages" in sports are read as per-thousand.
Fielding percentage in baseball, free throw or field goal percentage
in basketball, a goalie's save percentage in hockey, hitting
percentage in volleyball.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |If to "man" a phone implies handing
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |it over to a person of the male
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |gender, then to "monitor" it
|suggests handing it over to a
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |lizard.
(650)857-7572 | Rohan Oberoi