cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21049862

The only numbers I will ever spell are one and zero, and only when using them as a pronoun, or for emphasis, respectively.

Is there ever a reason to not to use symbols when dealing with numbers? Why would “fourteen whatevers” ever be preferable to “14 whatevers”. It’s just so much easier to read numbers as symbols, not spelled out.

(Caveat, not including multipliers, like “273 billion”).

  • @JusticeForPorygonEnglish
    10•1 day ago

    I spell out numbers when I want to emphasize them.

    Take George Orwell for example:

    “Nineteen Eighty-Four” has a lot more of a punch to it than just “1984.”

    • Tar_AlcaranEnglish
      8•21 hours ago

      I used to work in a library, and I hate this. We used to have both a “2001: a space Odyssey” and a “two thousand and one: a space oddesey”, sorted based on the spelling.

      • @JusticeForPorygonEnglish
        1•19 hours ago

        Isn’t that part of the reason we have Dewey/LoC system?

        • Tar_AlcaranEnglish
          1•16 hours ago

          Those are for academic books, not novels. And you’d still sort everything within a category alphabetically by author and then by title (usually)

          • @JusticeForPorygonEnglish
            1•14 hours ago

            I found Larry Flynt’s autobiography at my university’s library using the LCCN system.

            Then again that’s a University library so it might be different.

    • @MisterFrogOPEnglish
      1•24 hours ago

      Yeah haha, this is why it came to my mind. In this case it’s a title, so not really for the purpose of being used as a number.

      Though, I suppose I didn’t specify this