Numbers in sentences.

I had a thought coming home from work. What kind of sentencing structure in regards to numbers written works is the best for you and what you think publishers like?

Let's look as this by way of demonstration for me:

First example, age. Age is one of those things in literature that I really don't care how it's presented in writing. (And I've seen some evidence publishers don't care either.)

Things like:

...work just as fine as...

Both look professional and both are correct form.

Now on some topics such as time, number of hands and small amounts it's better to give written out counts for numbers than writing out numbers.

For example I find:

...to be horribly unprofessional and it looks ugly.

This on the other hand looks much better.

On the flipside some things are just better off expressed in pure Arabic numeral notation. Dates are the most obvious.

But others are different like the examples below:

As you can see, large numerical notation or really specific (or both) both look better than writing that out in written form and convey the message just perfectly.

But enough of my rambling, what say you?

They're not equally correct; style guides will tell you that numbers below 10 should be written out and numbers 10 and above should use numerals. One should avoid beginning a sentence with a numeral, however.

Generally, it's better to default to spelling numbers out if you're not sure. Garth Nix used this for "forty-nine" and above.

When I was a professional copyeditor, we followed the Chicago Manual of Style. Numbers below 100 (with some exceptions, such as dates) are written out; numbers 100 and above are numeric; a number cannot begin a sentence.

Also, someone's age is an adjective and is fully hyphenated: "thirty-two-year-old pharmacist," not "thirty-two year old pharmacist" or "thirty-two-year old pharmacist."

There are other style guides and other policies. Talk to your doctor before beginning any sort of editorial regimen.

I think the style manual that says everything over ten should be in numerals is geared towards newspapers, which are much more uptight about wasting space than any other medium. I'm with Chicago.

For some reason, Cracked articles always seem to say things like "thirty-feet". Drives me up a tree.

edited 6th Jul '11 8:45:47 AM by DomaDoma

I'd go with Ralph as well, anything that's two digits or less has a nice look to it with a single dash- thirty-four, seventy-one, ninety-six. They all read just fine.

Three-hundred and fourty-seven thousand, eight-hundred and twenty-nine, on the other hand, looks like shit. *

Not to mention, you read something like Three-hundred and fourty-seven thousand, eight-hundred and twenty-nine, and you forget what the number is by the end and you have to re-read it. *

edited 6th Jul '11 8:53:00 AM by deathjavu