Hiya

This may sound like a silly question, but when referring to figures, should they be spelt out or is it ok to use digits?

An example would be

~ She had 4 men vying for her attention (lucky girl)
or
~ She worked with 6 different advisors
or
~ She lived at number 12

Then there are times when we're talking eras, as in 60s/70s etc. Should we write sixties or just use 60s?

Is it necessary to be consistant throughout or is it ok to spell numbers out in certain situations and use digits in others?


~Sharon

Sharon,

I like to spell things out.

Grinder

Hi Sharon

I reckon it is down to you and how you feel it comes across best.

I reckon, if you are saying "He had seven girls vying for attention" (see what I did? Yeah yeah...) then no digits. But if you were to say she lived at number 12, keep the digits, or if it was a footie score or whatever (England 8 - Portugal 0 - COUGH! Sorry, I nearly choked on a penalty)

I had a line in one of my stories where a female character is thinking about an encounter with a mysterious lad, and is described as such:

"she had a million questions to ask, and 999,999 of them revolved around him"

But thinking about it, it could actually be more effective as "Nine hundred and ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine".

But that is so much more wordy, I reckon digits would be better.

Sorry - I know that is no help really, but I think it is actually an important question.

Any of you experts out there got some hot number tips?

Ree-gar-de


Dav

(please not Dave. Though, no offence to Dave's intended)

Most of the books I read seem to use words rather than numbers, but I've just looked in the Oxford Manual of Style and their advice is complicated on this question.

They recommend using words for numbers under 100, and figures for numbers over 100, but not to mix the two in the same sentence.

Use the word when a number appears as the first word in a sentence.

Use words for sayings etc. eg. ...talking twenty to the dozen...

Spell out ordinal numbers - eg. fourth.

Use figures for a sequence refering to measurement, percentage, quantity etc. eg. a 70 - 30 split...and for abbreviated forms of units, including units of time, and with symbols.

It goes on in this way for a couple of pages, but I'd guess that individual publishers have their own preferences.