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Number pronunciation

Number pronunciation

Number pronunciation

(OP)
I was recently corrected on pronunciation of numbers over one hundred. I have always said "one hundred AND one". My daughter, who is a chemistry major, pointed out that it should be "one hundred one". It makes sense now that I think about it but still doesn't sound right to me.

Anybody else have this or any other number pronunciation problems?

RE: Number pronunciation

I think it's one of those regional things which help to keep life interesting.

British and Australian speakers will nearly always say "one hundred AND one", whereas as far as I can tell from my exhaustive study of American television shows and films, Americans will usually say "one hundred one".

I can't find any definitive reference that tells me whether either is right or wrong.

RE: Number pronunciation

Don't remember when, but do remember being taught in school to ditch the "and"

TTFN

RE: Number pronunciation

And reveresed!
four and twenty blackbirds... would be the way to say 24 in earlier times.

Somewhere along the line this became twenty and four and then twenty four.

In some languages this structure is still presevered:
four and twenty (vier und zwansig)in German
In french twenty and one, but somewhere in the count we get to twenty one.

Plus we today don't use the particle necessary in some languages though we see its remnants in colonial versions of the english language.

This is all from the attics of my mind and i am running on very few brain cells today, as ever, so i'll need time to come up with an example in english.... but i'll bet someone will get there first.

However, for me it is always one hundred and one, one hundred and forty five etc.

As i said in another thread, it is the treatment of decimals that gets my blood boiling:
1.75 to me is one point seven five and it irritates me no end to hear people say one point seventyfive.

RE: Number pronunciation

I think we learn how to crawl before we walk.  I am amazed at how many people do not realize that the letter "O" is not the same as the digit "0".

I can live with One Hundred And One, or One Hundred One, or even One Zero One.  But please do not say One Oh One.

RE: Number pronunciation

Zero, nil, nul, nought and ought but not "oh"?
The problem is that it has become commonplace because of its brevity, particulalry in telephone numbers.

But 0 and O are a bl**dy nuisance when it comes to product keys, as if i don't have enough problems with the case sensitivity. I have gone so far as to adopt the continental 7 to avoid confusion with the 1, (especially with my writing) but hesitate to use the [&theta] to discriminate between 0 and O. I am not happy with the 5 in a circle that some computer files seem to generate.

RE: Number pronunciation

PS, Looks like i haven't solved the symbols conundrum yet.

RE: Number pronunciation

Not sure if this is right, but I was taught that when you use "AND" with a number, it implies that a fraction is coming next.

Example: "one hundred one and one half"

As opposed to: "one hundred and one and one half"

Was anyone else taught this?

Haf

RE: Number pronunciation

Haf,
That is exactly what I was taught in (American) elementary school (for better or for worse). So 101 would be said "one hundred one" and 101.3 would be said "one hundred one and three tenths".

RE: Number pronunciation

Agreed or one hundred one point three.

Four thousand three hundred fifty two OR four thousand three hundred fifty and two?  The second one sounds old and hackneyed.

Cajun,
In California They would look at you askance if you said "highway one hundred one" or "highway one hundred and one."  It's gotta be highway one-oh-one kinda like Kayro for Cairo, Illinois if you live in Missouri across the old Mississippi.  I love the sound of spelling out the name of that river.

I understand your frustration with point seventy five but it does not bother me.  Other things do.  I had a friend come off on me over the telephone when I gave him anothers' phone number as twenty seventeen instead of two zero one seven which is more communicative.

Jesus is THE life,
Leonard

RE: Number pronunciation

On checks, I usually write "twenty-six hundred" because it's shorter than writing "two thousand six hundred"

TTFN

RE: Number pronunciation

metman,

Point of Order:

What we Aussies and Pommies (British) would actually say is "Four thousand three hundred AND fifty two".

And while it might sound "old and hackneyed" to you, it sounds totally natural to us, whereas "Four thousand three hundred fifty two" does not roll off the tongue at all for us.

RE: Number pronunciation

This was taken from Reuters today.

"Internet use has exploded over the past decade, with an estimated 700 million and 1 billion users."

This could be a typo, where it should have been "700 million to 1 billion users."  I think if this were the case, I would have just written "700-1700 million users."

Or it could mean 700 million added to 1 billion, to equal 1.7 billion.  If this was the case, I think it should have been written 1.7 billion.

I guess we'll never know unless they do an article correction.

Ray Reynolds
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
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RE: Number pronunciation

as far as i can remember during my elemtary years, the correct wat to read 101 is one hundred AND one not one hundred one.

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