In Britain and Ireland:
three hundred and thirty-three
three hundred and thirty
three hundred (we agree about this one :))
three hundred and three
three thousand and three
three billion thirty million three hundred thousand and three
three trillion and three
There is an excellent reason for not writing numbers with “and”: numbers written in series. Consider the relative clarity of the following:
“Examples of perfect squares are sixteen, eighty-one, one hundred twenty-five, and one hundred forty-four.”
“Examples of perfect squares are sixteen, eighty-one, one hundred and twenty-five, and one hundred and forty-four.”
The first is clearly 16, 81, 125, and 144 – but the second causes a double-take. Until you get to the Oxford comma and penultimate and, it could be “16, 81, 100, and 25…” (which would be a true statement).
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The rule set I learned was:
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Always be consistent. Break the other rules if you must to assure conssitency.
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Always write out the numbers one through ten (except as provided in rule 1).
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Prefer writing out single-word numbers (sixteen and fifty, rather than 16 and 50).
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In general, write numerals rather than words for multi-word (including hyphenated-phrase) numbers: 46, 118, 1024, rather than forty-six, one hundred eighteen, one thousand twenty-four. Vary this where it seems appropriate: “The fixed verse forms beloved of Provencal poets were generally short: the villanelle and triolet had eight lines, the sonnet fourteen. But the sestina was an exception, with thirty-nine lines.” (To me that reads better than 8, 14, and 39 popping up in the text.)
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Always write large numbers (over 10,000) as numerals. Exception: write digits for precise round numbers, words for approximations. 8,000,000 means the next number after 7,999,999; “eight million” means an estimate; it might actually be 7,998,103 or 8,001,643, but it’s right in the eight million range.
Not at all. The first might just as well be “16, 81, 100, 25, and 144”, “16, 80, 1, 125, and 144”, and “16, 80, 1, 100, 20, 5, and 144”, for all we know. As well as “16, 80, 1, 100, 25, and 144”, “16, 81, 120, 5, and 144”, “16, 80, 1, 120, 5, and 144”… you get the idea.
ChrisBooth12 wasn’t talking about decimal as in “base ten,” but about decimal points. I learned in school (and through style guides) that the only time you put an “and” into a number is where the decimal point goes:
4,102.3 = four thousand one hundred two and three tenths
Although I would say “four thousand one hundred two point three” and not have the word “and” in the number at all.
If you’re writing for publication, follow the style guide of the publisher’s choice. If you’re writing casually, just be consistent.
ETA: Putting the word “and” in a year (e.g., “two thousand and ten”) just makes me cringe.
Glad you liked it. It’s mine, I made it up a couple of years ago, and this is the first time it’s ever been printed, anywhere. 
Oh, and shit, it should have been “sixteen”.
Heh, good point. I missed that too. :smack:
My observation is that using the “and” seems to be more of a British practice, although that’s not hard and fast. I still recall my 7th-grade math teacher drumming the “and” into us in Texas. But I don’t use it now myself.
There are times you – well, maybe not you personally – would read the last part of 4102.3 as “three tenths”? Would 0.35 get read as “zero and thirty-five hundredths”? Is this a US practice? (WAG – it sounds a bit like an imperial to metric transition sort of thing).
(Another in the "one hundred and two camp – British usage often means Commonwealth usage as well).
I think “one hundred and two” is standard in all flavours of English outside North America.
Nobody has talked about punctuation. If I were writing out a large number it would be, e.g., “one million, four hundred and twenty-seven thousand, six hundred and twenty-eight point four two”.
I’ve never heard a number shown as a decimal read or pronounced as a fraction. Those who follow this practice - would you render 4102.5 with “. . . and five-tenths” or “. . . and a half”? What about .25? Or .2?
It is your first example that causes me to double-take as I’m expecting the word “and” between “one hundred” and “twenty five”. It is the same, to me, as if you asked “do want drink?” My point being that it causes you to double take because it is not what you expect and it’s not what you expect because that’s not how you do it in North America. It’s a circular argument.
As far as speaking this kind of series it’s not a big problem because you don’t really say “one hundred and twenty five” you say “one hundred ‘n’ twenty five” which distinguishes it from any other "and"s in the sentence.
No, I wouldn’t. As I said in the quoted text:
The “and three tenths” structure is a math class kind of thing, not a real life kind of thing.
My main objections to putting “and” in numbers:
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It adds unnecessary words. “Two thousand two” is shorter than “Two thousand and two,” and the “and” adds absolutely nothing.
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It’s ambiguous. “Two thousand and two” could mean 2002, or it could mean 2000 (one number) and 2 (another number).
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To my ears, it’s awkward. I understand that’s a personal and regional thing, unlike the first two objections.
You could say that about a lot of words used to make English sentences.
To anyone used to the ‘and’ structure that’s exactly the problem with omitting it. ‘Two thousand two’ sounds like two distinct numbers - there’s nothing linking them.
Quite. To my ears, people omitting the ‘and’ always sound slightly out of breath.
To get back to the hijack, there are three kinds of people – those who can count, and those who cannot.
On a similar tack:
Q: How many Intel Pentiums does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Three. One to hold the ladder and one to swap the bulb.
Only bad people use “and” in numbers.
Bad is good.
Good is the new Bad.
A few issues: I personally leave off the ands, but that’s a personal preference. There is no standardization when you use them and people just use them where they feel they sound better.
- Three million, four hundred eighty six thousand, four hundred twenty one.
- Seven million, one hundred forty five thousand, seventy one.
As for the bigger numbers, you’ve got some controversy there. Americans use the groups of threes rules. After 999 something, you go to the next one up.but the rest of the world doesn’t follow this rule.
To me 1,000,000,000 is a billion, but to many Europeans, it is a thousand million.
I believe the British have adapted that 1,000,000,000 is a billion, but they still call 1,000,000,000,000 a thousand billion rather than a trillion.
Most Americans also use “and” in stating numbers. Only when you ask them about it do they deny it.
That hyphen is also a matter of style. The stylebooks I use say don’t use hyphens after a number ending in the letter Y.
Yeah, I was wondering why I didn’t get the joke . . . 