21st Century Grammar Handbook



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21st century grammar
21st century grammar, transformation, transformation, - - - .pdf;filename*= UTF-8''অনুবাদ চর্চা (প্রথম আলো পত্রিকা থেকে-২৯-০৩-২০২০)-1, 21st century grammar
S
PELLING
O
UT VERSUS
F
IGURES
In most formal English writing, numbers under 100 are spelled out. This is particularly true of ordinal numbers, which are usually spelled out no matter how long they are. However, formal business, economic, scientific, and other styles permit
(even encourage) showing most cardinal numbers in figures.
Ordinals vary depending on preferences but generally there is more tolerance for terms likest in scienti c, military and some other styles than in other writing,

where such gures are seen as errors. Newspapers and some other space-constrained publications favor gures because they are shorter, more visible, and more easily skimmed. Almost all styles encourage the use of one however, instead of or along with I which can be confused with the letter “el”: Please send me 1 (one) copy of the album.”
Whatever style you adopt, be sure to be consistent within any sentence or
paragraph, using all gures or all spelled-out numbers so that readers do not have to shift expectations. RIGHT I saw four birds and one hundred and six insects.”
WRONG: There are ninety-six chapters and 102 verses.”
Note that spelled-out cardinal numbers include hyphens for all numbers over twenty and below one hundred that are compounds of two or more numbers:
“Twenty-one bears and ninety-six cougars gathered by the pond Ordinals are hyphenated only when they modify a noun That is twenty rst; it is the twenty- rst time you have used that example Longer ordinal compounds are also hyphenated in their last element only when used as adjectives with a noun present “I
see the one hundred twenty-first flag it is one hundred twenty-first in line.”
When numbers begin sentences, they should always be spelled out Nineteen sixty- ve was a strange year Although some newspapers and other publications concerned with space violate this rule, most styles observe it since initial gures in a sentence are hard to place—are they subjects, list numbers, dates, note numbers, or something else Spelled-out numbers reduce this ambiguity and clarify writing.
Another way to clarify such a sentence is to revise it, moving the number from the initial position What a strange year 1965 was See revision.
Figures are mandatory in certain circumstances, however dates (November 23,
1963”), addresses (“32 Barrow St, Apt. B, New York, NY 10014-4927”), phone numbers (“212-699-9999”), and times (“6 A.M.,” but note that spelled-out numbers are ne without AM or “P.M.” or with “o’clock”: It was four in the afternoon “I
had an appointment for four o’clock this afternoon. Figures are also required with larger or very exact amounts of money (“$6.82 million “£3,475”), decimals and
fractions (“6.9387,” “¾?”), percentages (“36.9%,” “42 percent, sports or competitive scores (Bears win 21-10!” The pupil scored 97 on the test, and parts of plays and books (chapter 14,” Act 3,” scene 2”).



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