cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21049862
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").
What kills me is when people will mix the two in a single context.
"Between eight and 13 percent"
NO. If you're writing one number in digits, you need to write them all the same way.
This kills me, but its not as bad as the habit of new articles/print authors to switch between first and last names of the same person within a few sentences.
They will introduce Jeff Snoms, and then refer to them has "Jeff" and "Snoms" interchangeably for no discernable reason. It gets really maddening when they are doing it with 3 or 4 people, so suddenly the story has 2x as many characters involved.
Wait till you read russian novels, where everyone's got 3 names and 2 official nickname everyone is expected to know...
not to mention the fact that it's written in russian!