On Monday 24 May 2004 14:50, Daniel Barclay wrote: > richard lyons wrote: > > On Thursday 06 May 2004 14:43, Paul Johnson wrote: > >>...1,234,567.89 is "one million, two-hundred-thirty-four > >>thousand, five-hundred-sixty-seven and eighty-nine > >> one-hundredths." > > > > Oh come on - I never heard anyone pedantic enough to spell out > > the decimals like that. > > That's not pedantic. That's the original form before we started > abbreviating as you refer to next.
I very much doubt that was the original form. Can you give me source to back up that assertion? [hint: Try Milton, round about 1653; Simon Stevin, tr. R Norton, "The Art of Tenths, or Decimal Arithmetike" 1585; H Lyte "The Art of Tenths or Decimall Arithmeticke" 1619; Napier's Logarithms, tr. E Wright, 1616; or anything seventeenth or early eighteenth century.] If it were so, then you would first have to count the decimal places to work out how large the denominator was. 1.00045678 -- "ah yes that is one and fortyfive thousand six hundred (and) seventyeight hundred-millionths." I don't think so! And this is precisely why we say "point nine eight" not "point ninetyeight" and "point nine eight seven" not "point ninehundred (and) eightyseven" -- or even "and nine hundred (and) eightyseven thousandths". The "nine" - first digit after the decimal point - has the same value regardless of how many digits are stated after it, so we don't want to name it differently. > > > Everyone says "one million, two hundred (and) thirtyfour > > > > thousand, five hundred (and) sixtyseven point eight nine... -- richard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
