The absence of a comma after "forty-six thousand" in the fourth example is especially noteworthy.įrom The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law (2002): When isolated numbers (that is, numbers that appear only rarely in a manuscript) are spelled out, it is unnecessary to use and following the word hundred or thousand (although in formal literary and legal contexts and may be used).įorty-six thousand two hundred seventy-two From Words into Type, third edition (1974): (ISBN 978-0-7016-3648-7)Īs a supplement to BrainFRZ's very useful answer discussing the style recommendations of APA, MLA, and Chicago, I note comparable advice from Words into Type and the AP Stylebook. Source: Old habits from a stint in the Australian Public Service as a policy officer, and the Style Manual (6th ed), pg 176. Of course, your internal guides (or the prevailing style in your area, I have a funny feeling AmE might drop the internal ands for instance) will have their own suggestions, and consistency is king with something like this. I thought it was a bit silly when first having to internalise the style guide, but after a while it starts to make sense, for example in a straight side-by-side:įive million six hundred twenty nine thousand two hundred ninety sixįive million, six hundred and twenty-nine thousand, two hundred and ninety-six (5 629 296) Two million, fifty four thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine. Two million, fifty-four thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine. In my op, it's more natural but also binds the numerals together indicating who belongs to which group.įinally, hyphenate between the tens and ones of a group of digits, again for readability. I'd also suggest retaining the and within digit blocks. The numbers are much easier to scan for in text, and give a quicker indication of 'sizeness'.įive million, two hundred and fifty thousand, four hundred and twenty-two (5 250 422) If you can, place the numeric form after the string. Paraphrasing our guide (specific reference below) and personal experience, three other suggestions: I'll admit to influence being ex APS (Australian Public Service), but we do tend to do a lot of writing and our style guidelines have been hammered out specifically with a view to making sure that the relevant information gets to the eyes of the target reader, in a form with the lowest chance of it being mangled. It's a style guide thing in my op, but if you're writing out numerals that large in a block paragraph, I would recommend using the commas for readability purposes - a string of text numerals is hard to parse - and it also sounds better (I'm relatively sure most people insert pauses between logical digit groupings).
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