I thought the teachers trying to make us omit the “and” was just one of those prescriptionist things that teachers always do. I swear I and the other kids in my school grew up saying the “and” in these constructions as our native dialect. Never knew until now that made me British. Blimey.
Anyhow, the OP is actually asking about the indefinite article “a” as opposed to the numeral “one.” I was always aware that the indefinite article made it colloquial, but I was just more comfortable saying it that way; I never set out to be a math teacher anyway. Ironically, I did wind up teaching algebra at one point.
It’s pretty common in my dialect. “A hundred (and) fifty six” sounds slightly more conversational than “one hundred (and) fifty fifty six,” but it’s not a strange way of saying it. Hell, there’s a John Fogerty song entitled “A Hundred and Ten in the Shade.”
Aside from the teachers who told me the “and” was wrong, the main reason I usually don’t use it is that it adds a superfluous word that is sometimes – though not often – ambiguous. I was always taught to write using as few words as possible, and I tend to speak that way, too. Why add an extra word in the middle of the number?
Aside from the teachers who told me the “and” was wrong, the main reason I usually don’t use it is that it adds a superfluous word that is sometimes – though not often – ambiguous. I was always taught to write using as few words as possible, and I tend to speak that way, too. Why add an extra word in the middle of the number?
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Rhythm? Euphony? Because language isn’t about cramming-as-much-info-into-as-few-words-as-possible-type efficiency (irony intended)?
