The only numbers I will ever spell are one and zero, and only when using them as a pronoun, or for emphasis, respectively.

Is there ever a reason to not to use symbols when dealing with numbers? Why would “fourteen whatevers” ever be preferable to “14 whatevers”. It’s just so much easier to read numbers as symbols, not spelled out.

(Caveat, not including multipliers, like “273 billion”).

  • Fleur_@lemm.eeEnglish
    31·
    11 days ago

    You’re right but in the specific context the meme addresses I would still argue against you. Perhaps in this hypothetical the reasoning for the convention was irrelevant to whether 11 can be written as eleven or ten-one. Ultimately it doesn’t matter, we are in an engineering community, on a post about numbers less than ten and you’re arguing with me about ten-one being more situationally valid than eleven when we both agree that 11 is just better.