Damon L. Chesser wrote:
Daniel B. wrote:Travis Crump wrote:... Going through it in my mind, I pretty much treat it as any other list, dropping every 'and' but the last one. Put another way, say you have 'One thousand women, 3 hundred men, and 46 children'. How many people do you have? 'One thousand people, 3 hundred people, and 46 people'. Factor out people so that you only say it once and you have 'One thousand, 3 hundred, and 46 people'.Hmm. I never thought of it as a list, but you might have something there. To me (USA), "223,456" to me would be "two hundred twenty three thousand four hundred and fifty six"; "123,000" would be "one hundred and twenty three thousand" (or "a hundred and twenty three thousand"); for a check for $123.45, I'd write it out as "one hundred twenty three and 45/100 dollars."Well, this kind of proves the point, does it not?
Which point? It certainly does NOT prove a claim that "one hundred and twenty three" means 100.23 and doesn't mean 123. It does support the claim that it's like a list. > You write out "one
hundred twenty three *and* 45/100 dollars". That is because you do not want *any* confusion on the amount that will be drafted from your account.
I think you are completely confused.
1. One reason I write that "and" is because "one hundred twenty
three 45/100 dollars" would make no sense.
2. One reason I didn't write the "and" in "one hundred and twenty
three" is because there was an "and" following it, and we write
"A, B, and C" and not (usually) "A and B and C."
(The reason is not because "one hundred and twenty three" would
mean anything other than 123.)
3. The fact that "one hundred and 45/100" or "one hundred and forty
five hundredths" means 100.45 can NOT be used to argue that "one
hundred and forty-five" doesn't mean 145 and means 100.45 instead.
There is a big difference between "forty five" and "forty
five hundredths."
(Actually, I think there official supposed to be hyphens in places like "twenty-three thousand.")FWIW I think you are right about hyphens.
I just wish I remembered better where they go and where they don't. Daniel