David Cantrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> On Thu, Jan 04, 2001 at 09:28:26AM +0000, Piers Cawley wrote:
>
> > And for 'proper' library type sorting (assuming all works are in
> > English) we should really be doing something like:
> >
> > require Lingua::EN::Numbers;
> > s/(\d+(?:\.\d+))/Lingua::EN::Numbers->($1)->get_string/eg;
> >
> > since in a library numbers get sorted based on how they are spoken
> > based on the language of the work in whose title they appear.
>
> IME they're sorted according to a mixture of the numeric value and how
> the librarian would speak the number. For example, 4 is always sorted
> before 5, despite coming later in the dictionary. Maybe I've only been
> exposed to incompetent librarians who do it 'wrong', but I doubt it.
>
> And in any case, I can think of three different ways of saying 1821 in
> English alone.
>
> One thousand eight hundred and twenty one
> One thousand eight hundred twenty one
> Eighteen hundred and twenty one
>
> As far as *I* am concerned, the middle one is wrong (although I believe it
> is considered correct in some parts of the world), and whether to use the
> first or the thrid form would depend on context.
Good point. And we wonder why it's going to be a long, long time
before computers replace librarians. Anyway, this is dragging us back
to the original discussion in fun with perl, so I'll be quiet now...
--
Piers
