Correct Way To Fill Out A Cheque
Bun Mui
When one writes out the amount in letters of a cheque.
When is it proper to use "and"?
When one writes out $101.00 or $110.00 on a cheque.
Which is correct?-
E.g. One Hundred One Dollar or One Hundred and One Dollar.
or
One Hundred Ten Dollars or One Hundred and Ten Dollars.
I just want to know when it is proper to use "and" and when it is not,
when writing a cheque.
TIA
Bun Mui
Dave Harris
[Bun Mui:]
> [...]
> When one writes out $101.00 or $110.00 on a cheque.
>
> Which is correct?-
>
> E.g. One Hundred One Dollar or One Hundred and One Dollar.
I would use `One hundred and one dollars'.
> or
>
> One Hundred Ten Dollars or One Hundred and Ten Dollars.
I would use `One hundred and ten dollars'.
Since you ask about writing cheques, I'll volunteer the UK version of
when to and :-) . This is what I use:
Number to and or not to and?
------ ---------------------
0--100 no `and'
101--1099 `one hundred and one', `one hundred and forty-two', etc.
(except 200, 300, 400, etc.)
1,100-- `one thousand, one hundred and forty-two',
`one million, seven hundred and sixty-nine thousand,
five hundred and forty-two', etc.
Actually, I'm a bit confused over longer numbers. If we consider a
number as a list of numbers to be added together, I (as an `, and'
fan) would rather put the extra comma in. However, that just doesn't
seem right to me. I suppose I consider a number as a comma-separated
sequence (no `and' except within number components in the 101--1,099
range) or something.
--
Dave Harris
da...@cam.ac.uk
SLHinton17
Bun Mui asks:
<When one writes out the amount in letters of a cheque.
<When is it proper to use "and"?
<When one writes out $101.00 or $110.00 on a cheque.
<Which is correct?-
<E.g. One Hundred One Dollar or One Hundred and One Dollar.
**************
Neither is correct. It should be "One Hundred One Dollars."
***************
<or
<One Hundred Ten Dollars or One Hundred and Ten Dollars.
****************
<One Hundred Ten Dollars" is correct.
****************
<I just want to know when it is proper to use "and" and when it is not,
<when writing a cheque.
****************
In the usage I was taught --oh! so long ago!-- "and" was used only if there
were some cents amounting to less than a dollar: thus, for $100.15, "One
Hundred One Dollars and 15/100."
When I use the term "correct." that simply means the way I was taught to do
it. I don't believe, however, that any of your examples would prevent a
check's being cashed.
Subject: Correct Way To Fill Out A Cheque
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From: Bun Mui <xBun...@usa.net>
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Date: 16 Oct 1997 19:09:01 GMT
Organization: Bun Mui
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Sam Hinton
La Jolla, CA
Mark Baker
In article <625ood$8lo$1...@usenet88.supernews.com>,
Bun Mui <xBun...@usa.net> writes:
> Which is correct?-
Anything unambiguous, the exact wording doesn't matter.
Peter K W Tan
SLHinton17 (slhin...@aol.com) wrote:
: In the usage I was taught --oh! so long ago!-- "and" was used only if there
: were some cents amounting to less than a dollar: thus, for $100.15, "One
: Hundred One Dollars and 15/100."
This is the American convention, although I've seen and heard the 'and'
in, say, 'three hundred and sixty-five days'. The UK/Commonwealth
convention is to have the 'and', and thus, on a cheque, I'd write (for
$101.00) 'one hundred and one dollars only/exactly' and (for $110.00)
'one hundred and ten dollars exactly/only'.
Peter Tan
Singapore
: Subject: Correct Way To Fill Out A Cheque
David Yamanishi
As a former bank teller, I can tell you that there's no standard way,
and so far as I remember no proper way. In general, I preferred that
people use (and I myself use) "and" only between the word "dollars"
and the number of cents, but I'd estimate that only 40% or so of the
checks I saw were so consistently printed. I receive two payroll
checks each month from two different sources now; one uses "and" as
I've recommended; the other uses "and" there and, where appropriate,
in the description of the number of dollars, as well.
On 16 Oct 1997 19:09:01 GMT, Bun Mui <xBun...@usa.net> wrote:
>When one writes out the amount in letters of a cheque.
>
>When is it proper to use "and"?
>
>When one writes out $101.00 or $110.00 on a cheque.
>
>Which is correct?-
>
>E.g. One Hundred One Dollar or One Hundred and One Dollar.
>
>or
>
>One Hundred Ten Dollars or One Hundred and Ten Dollars.
>
>I just want to know when it is proper to use "and" and when it is not,
>when writing a cheque.
>
>TIA
>
>Bun Mui
>
>
Jonathan Sachs
In "The Birth of the Modern," I was intrigued to see Paul Johnson, a
British historian, use the spelling "check" rather than "cheque." Are
both spellings now accepted on that side of the ocean?
- -
Jonathan Sachs
Sand River Software, Inc.
Chris Malcolm
In article <3448f6ac...@news.dnai.com> jona...@dnai.com writes:
>In "The Birth of the Modern," I was intrigued to see Paul Johnson, a
>British historian, use the spelling "check" rather than "cheque."
Were you reading a British English version, or an American translation?
--
Chris Malcolm c...@dai.ed.ac.uk +44 (0)131 650 3085
Department of Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK DoD #205
Jonathan Sachs
I'm now reading the chapter on British artists, which gives due
attention to developments in the use of color, not colour. Darn, the
book's spelling *is* Americanized. I'm baffled by this -- why would
the publisher bother doing it?
Perhaps it was just the copy editors' weirdness. I wrote three
computer books in the 1980's, and I the copy editors continually
mangled or even reversed the meaning of my words. They always gave me
a hard time when I objected, insisting that the changes were purely
for conformance with house style, and were none of my concern!
Albert Marshall
Jonathan Sachs <jona...@dnai.com> wrote
>c...@dai.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) wrote:
>
>>Were you reading a British English version, or an American translation?
>
>"translated" for an American audience.
I have, OTOH, read a book "translated from the original American". It is
my treasured "Impoverished Student's Guide to Cookery, Drinkery and
Housekeepery", bought in the late 60s and currently in use by my eldest
who is studying in London.
The only obvious clue to its provenance is a reference to "peanut butter
and anything available" sandwiches, which were definitely not commonly
found in British student society at that time.
It also has a recipe for Imam b'ai il dih (sorry if I've mis-spelled
that, the original is far away).
--
Albert Marshall
Executive French
Language Training for Businesses in Kent
01634 400902
Brian J Goggin
On Thu, 23 Oct 1997 21:29:04 +0100, Albert Marshall
<alb...@execfrog.demon.co.uk> wrote:
[...]
>It also has a recipe for Imam b'ai il dih (sorry if I've mis-spelled
>that, the original is far away).
You're probably pretty safe: I've seen several spellings for that. But
no, I'm not going to go and look them up.
bjg
P&DSchultz
Gerald B Mathias wrote:
> As for counting dollars, it's the same as counting oranges. One
> says "one hundred and one oranges," "one hundred and one dollars"
> (not "dollar").
Whoa! This is getting WAY too complicated. The sensible thing to do,
to avoid any possibility that you could be considered uninformed
about how to write checks, is to give the person two separate checks;
one for a hundred dollars and one for one dollar. That way they'll
never know.
KB (see signature)
In article <34543141....@news.indigo.ie>, b...@wordwrights.ie (Brian
J Goggin) wrote:
It's Turkish. Imam bayildi. Except the two letter i's (or is it letters
i?) have no dot on them. They are pronounced as "uh". So the whole word
sounds like "buy-uhl-duh". You take the verb "bayilmak" and use the "DI"
suffix which means third person, past tense. It means "the Imam fainted"
There are all kinds of stories about how the dish got the name. Generally,
the Imam either fainted from pleasure, because it was so delicious or he
fainted from shock when he discovered how much olive oil it used. End of
lesson--I doubt most readers of this group are *that* fascinated with
Turkish grammar.
--
Kathy Brunetti
The "From" address is a fake, courtesy of my ISP. Here's a real one--remove capital letters to reply. kbr...@ns.REMOVE-TO-REPLY.net
Jeff Pack
Gerald B Mathias wrote in message <62rdlu$2...@news.Hawaii.Edu>...
>As for counting dollars, it's the same as counting oranges. One
>says "one hundred and one oranges," "one hundred and one dollars"
>(not "dollar"). "Ten and a half oranges," "Ten and 50/100 dollars."
>Some people try to make it complicated, as if cheques and checks
>were different from real life, but I don't know why.
Back in elementary school (early 1980s) I was taught that one used "and"
where one would place a decimal point if one were to write the number
numerically. Thus:
One hundred one oranges
One hundred one dollars
Ten and one half oranges
Ten and 50/100 dollars
(Personally, I'm tempted to write a check for "One and one third dollars"
just to see the bank's reaction. Not tempted enough to actually *do* it,
but it's a nice anarchistic thought...)
Jonathan Paterson
c...@dai.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) wrote:
>>Were you reading a British English version, or an American translation?
jona...@dnai.com (Jonathan Sachs) wrote:
>An interesting question. I never heard of a British book being
>"translated" for an American audience. Nor do I recall seeing any
>other words that would peg it one way or the other, and after I saw
>"check," my antennae were out.
I missed the beginning of this thread, but I believe that at least
until the sixties it was quite common for British books to be edited
separately for American editions. In the half-dozen cases in which I
have compared more than a page or two, in only one (one of C. S.
Forester's Hornblower novels) were the differences limited to the
predictable spelling and punctuation changes, though the reasons for
other differences were not always evident. I would have expected some
straightforward vocabulary changes (lorry/truck, for example), but
didn't find them.
Jonathan Paterson
Montreal, Quebec
Peter Moylan
Jeff Pack <book...@brown.edu> wrote:
>Back in elementary school (early 1980s) I was taught that one used "and"
>where one would place a decimal point if one were to write the number
>numerically. Thus:
>
>One hundred one oranges
>One hundred one dollars
>Ten and one half oranges
>Ten and 50/100 dollars
It's worth noting that the rules aren't the same for every country.
If you wrote "ten and 50/100 dollars" on an Australian cheque, the
bank would probably bounce it - they wouldn't be able to work out
whether you meant $60 or $110.
But that's not the reason I'm responding in this thread. I've been
sitting here for the last several minutes saying "cheque" to
myself, and I've discovered something interesting. That last
consonant is not, in my idiolect, the back-of-the-throat sound that
I use at the beginning of words like "quick" and "cool". Rather,
it's the middle-of-the-mouth [k] that I use in words like "cat".
In fact, I've just realised that I pronounce "cheque" exactly the
same way as "check". Now I'm wondering whether I should adopt
the US spelling.
Nah, too confusing. I think I'll start calling it a czech.
--
Peter Moylan pe...@ee.newcastle.edu.au
http://www.ee.newcastle.edu.au/users/staff/peter/Moylan.html
Robert Lieblich
Jeff Pack wrote:
<snip>
> (Personally, I'm tempted to write a check for "One and one third dollars"
> just to see the bank's reaction. Not tempted enough to actually *do* it,
> but it's a nice anarchistic thought...)
One aspect of this we haven't yet gone into is the physical material of
which the check consists. In the US, and I suppose in most countries
now, people use pre-printed forms with computer-readable numbers at the
bottom. AFAIK, US law still allows the use of non-standard forms of
checks, but the person writing the check must pay a fee for its
processing.
Several decades ago, A.P. Herbert, writing in *Punch*. invented a
character named Albert Haddock (the identity of initials was not
coincidental) who had many a fictional misadventure with the law. Once,
to get rid of a pesky creditor, Haddock wrote a check (which after all
is only instructions to a bank to do something with one's money) on the
side of a cow, then turned it over to the creditor. In Herbert's mock
judicial opinion describing this, the creditor insisted on being paid,
even after he had received the cow, and Haddock insisted that the
creditor should be required to take the cow to the bank and collect on
the chcek. Haddock won.
The name of the story: "The Negotiable Cow."
And when the cow cleared the bank, it was returned to the drafter -- Mr.
Haddock.
I'm not sure the story would come out the same way today.
Bob Lieblich
Ross Howard
Robert Lieblich <lieb...@erols.com> wrote:
>Jeff Pack wrote:
><snip>
Probably not. At least not here. The cow would be a sheep.
Ross Howard
[My e-mail address is spam-free]
John Nurick
On Sat, 25 Oct 1997 10:56:39 GMT, ro...@adman.demon.co.uk (Roger
Hall) wrote:
>I'm a UK resident and I must confess to being confused when I opened
>my first US bank account. Not only did I have to learn a new set of
>words (e.g. drafting instead of direct debiting/standing order) and
>spelling (the obvious one is cheque/check) but I also had to write my
>cheques in what seems to me to be an unnatural way.
I wrote checks in the US exactly as I would in Australia or the
UK: "FiftyThreeDollarsFortyFiveCents" and "$53--45" or
"OneHundredDollarsOnly" and "$100--00" and no one seemed to
mind. (In the UK I put "Pounds" and a pound sign, not "Dollars",
of course.)
What did cause confusion in America was my habit of drawing two
diagonal lines across the face of the check and writing "Not
Negotiable" or "A/C Payee Only" between them; this is standard
practice in the places I come from to prevent an ill-intentioned
person from endorsing a cheque to himself and paying it into his
own account (so standard that my British bank prints the lines
and words on the cheque forms).
John
I dislocated my e-mail address, and the doctor says it will be
six months before I can see a specialist.
Robin L. Hill
Roger Hall <ro...@adman.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
<3457ee2c....@news.demon.co.uk>...
>
> I'm a UK resident and I must confess to being confused when I opened
> my first US bank account. Not only did I have to learn a new set of
> words (e.g. drafting instead of direct debiting/standing order) and
> spelling (the obvious one is cheque/check) but I also had to write my
> cheques in what seems to me to be an unnatural way.
>
> The example above shows what I mean. In the UK, to the best of my
> knowledge, the way we would write 10 1/2 pounds on a cheque would be
> Ten Pounds --------------- 50p Only. That is, the number of pounds in
> words followed by a straight line then the number of pence in numbers.
> The word 'Only' is used quite regularly on UK cheques. The idea of
> writing the last bit as a fraction of 100 makes my teeth itch. It just
> doesn't feel right.
>
(snip)
>
> The point of all that is to lead up to this question - why don't
> Americans just write 50 cents instead of 50/100?
>
> Roger Hall
> g4...@qsl.net
Roger:
It's pure laziness on our part. The word "DOLLARS" is pre-printed at the
end of the line. We don't have to write it ourselves, since a machine has
done it for us. Also, writing "xx/100" is faster and less work than writing
"xx cents" (not to mention that the latter fouls up the idea of having the
word "DOLLARS" printed where it is).
In the UK it's a matter of tradition, I would surmise. Hell, it's only been
within the last twenty years or so that your pound has been broken up into
100 pence (and NEW pence at that!). Before that, I believe there were
twelve pence to a shilling and twenty shillings to a pound, hence, 240
pence to the pound. The fact was you COULDN'T use our system, at least not
without a slide rule, and even then the results wouldn't have been pretty.
In a way, it's funny. The U.S. eschews the metric system and the world
screams at us. We take full advantage of the one decimal-based thing we
have, and the world is still screaming at us.
We can't win. Why do we even try?
Robin L. Hill (Ninety-nine and 44/100% pure [apologies to Proctor & Gamble]
American)
>
Mark Baker
In article <3457ee2c....@news.demon.co.uk>,
ro...@adman.demon.co.uk (Roger Hall) writes:
> The example above shows what I mean. In the UK, to the best of my
> knowledge, the way we would write 10 1/2 pounds on a cheque would be
> Ten Pounds --------------- 50p Only.
That's a very strange way to write a cheque. Normally the line goes at the
end, after the number of pence, and only is used when it is a whole number
of pounds to stop anyone adding the pence. So I would write a cheque for
10.50 as Ten Pounds 50----------------, or one for a tenner as
Ten Pounds Only------------.
I've just looked at the "how to write a cheque" page in my chequebook, and
the sample there is much like I would write it, only with 50p instead of
just 50.
Richard L. Brown
>The point of all that is to lead up to this question - why don't
>Americans just write 50 cents instead of 50/100?
The reason I don't do so is that my checks are designed with the word
"Dollars" already printed at the end of the blank line, so if I used
Mr. Hall's proposed "cents" convention then the line would appear as:
One-hundred one dollars and 50 cents ---- Dollars
which seems silly.
So, I write instead, "One-hundred one and 50/100 ----" and allow the
pre-printed "Dollars" actually to retain some meaning. (I'll bet that
the bank would cash the silly version anyway, though!)
As for where the "and" goes, Sister Mary Elephant used to rap my knuckles
with her ruler every time I said "One-hundred and one." She was thus able
to persuade me that "and" should be used only in place of a decimal point,
or at least following what she used to call a "whole number," and _never_
in the middle of one. So, "three-thousand and forty-two" was beaten right
out of me. To this day, I can't bring myself to use that idiom: Instead,
It's always "three-thousand forty-two _and_ some odd fraction." Or else.
I reckon my punctuation-inside-the-double-quotes style looks peculiar to
British readers, as well. And I'm sure the same goes for my spellings of
"check," "tire," and "labor." But I try to embrace diversity, and thus
don't typically ask, "Why do the Brits insist on doing things in such a
wrong-headed way?" when I notice a difference from what I'm used to.
I'm definitely too set in my ways to change now, so I hope my shortcomings
will be overlooked; I hope also that my answer may serve as a data point
to clarify the situation about which Mr. Hall has asked.
Rich
--
Richard L. Brown Office of Information Services
rbr...@ccmail.uwsa.edu University of Wisconsin System Administration
rlbr...@facstaff.wisc.edu 780 Regent St., Rm. 246 / Madison, WI 53715
Evan Kirshenbaum
ro...@adman.demon.co.uk (Roger Hall) writes:
> The point of all that is to lead up to this question - why don't
> Americans just write 50 cents instead of 50/100?
The reason is that the words are generally written on a line that is
immediately followed by the printed word "Dollars", which becomes part
of the sentence (the beginning of which is "Pay to the order of"). I
just checked one of mine, and this is still the case. So "five and
50/100 [Dollars]" makes more sense than "five and 50 cents [Dollars]".
I've occasionally wondered what would happen if I wrote a check for
"exactly ten and 2/3 [Dollars]". I suspect that it might cause the
banking system to collapse.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Never ascribe to malice that which
1501 Page Mill Road, Building 1U |can adequately be explained by
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |stupidity.
Daan Sandee
In article <345147f0...@nntp.mlink.net> pate...@Mlink.NET writes:
>c...@dai.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) wrote:
>
>I missed the beginning of this thread, but I believe that at least
>until the sixties it was quite common for British books to be edited
>separately for American editions. In the half-dozen cases in which I
>have compared more than a page or two, in only one (one of C. S.
>Forester's Hornblower novels) were the differences limited to the
>predictable spelling and punctuation changes, though the reasons for
I am happy to say that though I possess many books by C.S.Forester that
were published in the U.S., all of them stick to the British spelling.
The oldest is a book published by Bantam in 1946 for the price of forty
cents. No, I did not buy it in 1946 ; I bought it in 1986 for (I think)
fifty cents.
Daan Sandee
Burlington, MA Use this email address: sandee (at) east . sun . com
Steve Lewin
The message <631ocv$p1b$1...@aziraphale.pet.cam.ac.uk>
from mba...@iee.org (Mark Baker) contains these words:
> In article <3457ee2c....@news.demon.co.uk>,
> ro...@adman.demon.co.uk (Roger Hall) writes:
> > The example above shows what I mean. In the UK, to the best of my
> > knowledge, the way we would write 10 1/2 pounds on a cheque would be
> > Ten Pounds --------------- 50p Only.
> That's a very strange way to write a cheque. Normally the line goes at the
> end, after the number of pence, and only is used when it is a whole number
> of pounds to stop anyone adding the pence. So I would write a cheque for
> 10.50 as Ten Pounds 50----------------, or one for a tenner as
> Ten Pounds Only------------.
I'll split the difference. I like the line that Roger uses but I only
write 'only' for whole pounds. So "Ten Pounds---------------50p" or
"Ten pounds only". No need for a line with whole pounds. No bank is
going to pay out a cheque that says Ten pounds only 99p" now are they ?
To continue this theme however I also write the numbers so they fill
the little box provided e.g. 10------50, rather than 10.50 or
10-------00. Don't ask me why, I have done this for several decades
and I ain't lost any money that way yet.
Steve
Mark Baker
In article <v9hn2jv...@garrett.hpl.hp.com>,
Evan Kirshenbaum <ev...@garrett.hpl.hp.com> writes:
> The reason is that the words are generally written on a line that is
> immediately followed by the printed word "Dollars", which becomes part
> of the sentence (the beginning of which is "Pay to the order of").
British Cheques don't have either of those; they look something like this:
The Royal Bank of Scotland 16-15-19
Cambridge branch
82-88 Hills Road Cambridge CB2 1LG Date_________19__
Pay
------------------------------------------------------' --------------
|£ |
------------------------------------------------------' --------------
MARK BAKER
---------------------------------
Cheque Number Sort Code Account Number ___________________
"000088" 16-1519 10004141"
KOWALKOWSKI L.
Why did somebody ask for the correct way to fill out a cheque? Are they
having trouble? Does their bank keep rejecting their cheques? If so,
why doesn't the bank give suggestions... etc...
Peter Moylan
Evan Kirshenbaum <ev...@garrett.hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>I've occasionally wondered what would happen if I wrote a check for
>"exactly ten and 2/3 [Dollars]". I suspect that it might cause the
>banking system to collapse.
I'm not sure whether I'm propagating an urban legend here,
but I'll tell the story anyway. At the time I heard it,
a few years ago, I was reasonably certain that it was something
that really happened.
Apparently someone was being hounded by a credit card
company, with the threat of legal action, over an outstanding
account for the amount of $0.00. His attempts to have
the problem rectified were met with the usual excuse:
"we can't do anything about it, it's the computer".
Finally, he gave in and sent them a cheque for $0.00.
And that's when the excrement really hit the fan.
The programmers of the bank's software hadn't thought of
this possibility, so it put the bank out of action for
an hour or so.
By the way, a friend of mine came up with an excellent
response to that "it's the computer" excuse. After
being taken on this merry-go-round by a big company he
sent them a letter saying "I see that you have a problem
with your computer. I am a software consultant, and
my rates are ..." They didn't hire him, but they did
immediately fix his problem.
(I was going to tell you the name of the company, but
I couldn't work out whether it was Reader's Digest
or Readers' Digest. How many readers do they have
these days?)