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how to pronounce numbers
06-24-2018, 10:49 AM (This post was last modified: 06-24-2018 10:50 AM by Zaphod.)
Post: #21
RE: how to pronounce numbers
(06-24-2018 01:08 AM)Wes Loewer Wrote:  Pronunciation is important.
She said, "one thousand five hundred milligrams."

See, I would say that number as just fifteen hundred , not one thousand, five hundred
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06-24-2018, 06:36 PM (This post was last modified: 06-24-2018 07:06 PM by Gerson W. Barbosa.)
Post: #22
RE: how to pronounce numbers
126.544: One hundred and twenty-six, point five double four /... 'n' twenny siks.../

I am right, am I not? (Or should I say "Aren't I?" :-)

Well, that's how I was taught fourty years ago or so.

BTW, has anyone here also written a program to fill checks (or cheques), but in English?

I am interested in the full numbers routine. Who still fills checks these days?

[Image: 41176345090_92396ac14c_b.jpg]

That was equivalent to about US$ 100.00 by mid February '86. I think at least twice that amount was required to buy a new HP-42S then. Perhaps even more. One ought literally to be a millionaire to buy HP here :-)

Back in the day I had an Olivetti electrical printer which a third-party interface would turn into a parallel line printer for a fraction of the price of a dot-matrix printer. Those were the days!

Code:

10 CLS: KEYOFF: CLEAR 500: DIM MU$(19),M$(11)
15 PRINT CHR$(27);"Z"
20 K=1000000#
30 FOR I=0 TO 19
40   READ MU$(I)
50 NEXT
60 FOR I=0 TO 9
70   READ MD$(I),MC$(I)
80 NEXT
90 FOR I=0 TO 11
100   READ M$(I)
110 NEXT
120 CLS:X$=""
130 INPUT "        Quantia  ";N
140 INPUT "Data (DD,MM,AA)  ";D,M,A
150 LINEINPUT "A: ";P$
160 IF A=0 THEN A=92
170 IF N=0 THEN 710
180 CV=(N-INT(N))*100
190 GOSUB 930
200 IF N<1 THEN 420
210 IF N>1.99 THEN N$="S" ELSE N$=""
220 CN=INT((N/1000-INT(N/1000))*1000)
230 MR=INT(((N/K-INT(N/K))*K)/1000)
240 CT=INT(N/K)
250 IF CT=0 THEN 290
260 GOSUB 730
270 IF CT>1 THEN X$=X$+" MILHÕES " ELSE X$=X$+" MILHÃO "
280 IF MR=0 AND CN=0 THEN X$=X$+"DE "
290 IF MR=0 THEN 340
300 IF CT>0 AND CN=0 AND (MR<100 OR MR MOD 100=0) THEN X$=X$+"E "
310 CT=MR
320 GOSUB 730
330 X$=X$+" MIL "
340 IF CN=0 THEN 390
350 IF N>1000 AND (CN<100 OR CN MOD 100=0) THEN X$=X$+"E "
360 CT=CN
370 GOSUB 730
380 X$=X$+" "
390 X$=X$+"CRUZEIRO"+N$
400 IF CV=0 THEN 460
410 X$=X$+" E "
420 IF CV<>1 THEN N$="S" ELSE N$=""
430 CT=CV
440 GOSUB 730
450 X$=X$+" CENTAVO"+N$
460 PRINT TAB(10);
470 IF LEN(X$)<57 THEN GOSUB 840: GOTO 640
480 FOR I=56 TO 42 STEP -1
490   IF MID$(X$,I,1)=" " THEN 510
500 NEXT
510 NC=I-1
520 FOR I=1 TO 56-NC
530   PRINT "*";
540 NEXT
550 PRINT " ";
560 FOR I=1 TO LEN(X$)
570   PRINT MID$(X$,I,1);
580   IF I=NC+1 THEN PRINT
590 NEXT
600 PRINT " ";
610 FOR I=1 TO 67+NC-LEN(X$)
620   PRINT "*";
630 NEXT
640 PRINT:  PRINT "  ";P$
650 PRINT TAB(32)"Curitiba,";: IF D=1 THEN  PRINT" 1§"; ELSE  PRINT USING"###";D;
660 PRINT TAB(48)M$(M-1); TAB(64)A
670 PRINT:  PRINT
680 PRINT "Outro cheque? "
690 A$=INKEY$
700 IF A$<>"S" AND A$<>"s" AND A$<>"N" AND A$<>"n" THEN 690
710 IF A$="S" OR A$="s" THEN 120
720 END
730 DZ=(CT/100-INT(CT/100))*100
740 UN=(DZ/10-INT(DZ/10))*10
750 IF CT=100 AND DZ=0 THEN X$=X$+"CEM": GOTO 830
760 IF CT/100<1 THEN 790
770 X$=X$+MC$(CT/100)
780 IF DZ>0 THEN X$=X$+" E "
790 IF DZ<20 THEN X$=X$+MU$(DZ): GOTO 830
800 X$=X$+MD$(DZ/10)
810 IF UN>0 THEN X$=X$+" E "
820 X$=X$+MU$(UN)
830 RETURN
840 FOR I=1 TO LEN(X$)
850   PRINT MID$(X$,I,1);
860 NEXT
870  PRINT " ";
880 FOR I=1 TO 123-LEN(X$)
890   PRINT "*";
900 IF I=56-LEN(X$) THEN  PRINT
910 NEXT
920 RETURN
930 ND=LOG(N)/LOG(10)+1
940 Q$=STR$(N)
950 IF CV=0 THEN Q$=Q$+".00"
960 PRINT TAB(52);
970 FOR I=1 TO 16-LEN(Q$)-(ND-1)\3
980   PRINT "*";
990 NEXT
1000 PRINT TAB((66-LEN(Q$))-(ND-1)\3)
1010 CD=ND MOD 3
1020 IF CD=0 THEN CD=3
1030 FOR I=1 TO ND
1040   PRINT MID$(Q$,I+1,1);
1050 IF I=CD AND CD<ND-1 THEN  PRINT ".";: CD=CD+3
1060 NEXT
1070 PRINT ",";
1080 PRINT MID$(Q$,I+2,2)
1090 PRINT
1100 RETURN
1110 DATA ,UM,DOIS,TRÊS,QUATRO,CINCO,SEIS,SETE,OITO,NOVE,DEZ,ONZE,DOZE,TREZE,QUATORZE,QUIN​ZE,DEZESSEIS,DEZESETE,DEZOITO,DEZENOVE
1120 DATA ,,,CENTO,VINTE,DUZENTOS,TRINTA,TREZENTOS,QUARENTA,QUATROCENTOS,CINQÜENTA,QUINHEN​TOS,SESSENTA,SEISCENTOS,SETENTA,SETECENTOS,OITENTA,OITOCENTOS,NOVENTA,NOVECENTOS​
1130 DATA Janeiro,Fevereiro,Março,Abril,Maio,Junho,Julho,Agosto,Setembro,Outubro,Novembro,​Dezembro
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06-24-2018, 07:09 PM
Post: #23
RE: how to pronounce numbers
Cheques are so 20th century
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06-24-2018, 07:53 PM
Post: #24
RE: how to pronounce numbers
(06-23-2018 10:48 AM)Don Shepherd Wrote:  When numbers are spoken, how should they be pronounced?

The math textbooks I have used in the past say that 126.544 should be pronounced as "one hundred twenty-six and five hundred forty-four thousandths," using "and" to represent the decimal point. But many would say "one hundred and twenty-six point five four four".

Why not just "one two six point five four four" ?

(06-23-2018 07:43 PM)ttw Wrote:  Eleven thousand eleven hundred and one.

(06-23-2018 01:19 PM)Don Shepherd Wrote:  How would you write that as a number?

12111

I would say 12101
Code:
Eleven thousand: 11000
Eleven hundred:   1100
And one:             1
=                12101


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06-24-2018, 11:20 PM
Post: #25
RE: how to pronounce numbers
I thought I wrote eleven thousand, eleven hundred and eleven. Oh well.
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06-25-2018, 03:27 AM (This post was last modified: 06-25-2018 03:33 AM by DavidM.)
Post: #26
RE: how to pronounce numbers
(06-24-2018 06:36 PM)Gerson W. Barbosa Wrote:  BTW, has anyone here also written a program to fill checks (or cheques), but in English?

I am interested in the full numbers routine. Who still fills checks these days?

This is a messy-and-dirty RPL transcription of a routine I once used to create the text of the "body amount" of a check-printing application. I didn't bother including the cents part of the routine, as it merely generated "and xx/100" (xx being the two digits after the radix mark).

Apologies in advance for this -- I haven't spent any time trying to optimize it or make it more RPL-friendly. It's ugly, but I believe this is a faithful rendition of the original algorithm.

Although not needed for checks, it does handle zero, negative numbers, and larger amounts than would normally be used on a check Smile (x<1E45). The original also capitalized the first letter, which I didn't bother to include in this transcription.

Code:
\<<
  @ digits
  { "one" "two" "three" "four" "five" "six" "seven"
    "eight" "nine" }

  @ teens
  { "ten" "eleven" "twelve" "thirteen" "fourteen"
    "fifteen" "sixteen" "seventeen" "eighteen"
    "nineteen" }

  @ tens
  { "twenty" "thirty" "forty" "fifty" "sixty" "seventy"
    "eighty" "ninety" }

  @ magnitude
  { "thousand" "million" "billion" "trillion" "quadrillion"
    "quintillion" "sextillion" "septillion" "octillion"
    "nonillion" "decillion" "undecillion" "duodecillion"
    "tredecillion" }

  @ subroutine to append string with preceding space if appropriate
  \<<
    OVER SIZE { " " SWAP + } IFT +
  \>>

  \-> digits teens tens magnitude addstr
  \<<
    @ discard fractional value if real (for RPL)
    IF
      DUP TYPE NOT
    THEN
      IP
    END

    @ translate to zero if appropriate, otherwise proceed
    IF
      DUP NOT
    THEN
      DROP "zero"
    ELSE
      @ retain sign
      DUP SIGN SWAP ABS

      @ pre-load stack with magnitude, initial string
      0. "" ROT

      @ process triples until done
      WHILE
        DUP
      REPEAT
        @ get next triple
        1000 IDIV2

        @ split triple into hundreds and remainder
        100 IDIV2

        @ convert hundreds of this triple
        SWAP
        IF
          DUP
        THEN
          digits SWAP GET
          " hundred" +
        ELSE
          DROP ""
        END

        @ convert remainder digits of this triple
        SWAP
        IF
          DUP
        THEN
          CASE
            10 OVER > THEN
              digits SWAP GET addstr EVAL
            END
            20 OVER > THEN
              teens SWAP 9. - GET addstr EVAL
            END
            10 IDIV2 SWAP
            tens SWAP 1. - GET ROT SWAP addstr EVAL
            SWAP
            IF
              DUP
            THEN
              digits SWAP GET
              "-" SWAP + +
            ELSE
              DROP
            END
          END
        ELSE
          DROP
        END

        @ add magnitude if appropriate
        4. ROLL
        IF
          OVER SIZE OVER AND
        THEN
          " " magnitude PICK3 GET +
          ROT SWAP + SWAP
        END
        1. + 4. ROLLD
        ROT

        @ accumulate new triple into final string
        IF
          OVER SIZE
          OVER SIZE AND
        THEN
          " " SWAP +
        END
        +
        SWAP
      END

      @ drop temporary stack values
      ROT DROP2

      @ prepend "negative" if appropriate
      IF
        SWAP 0. <
      THEN
        "negative " SWAP +
      END
    END
  \>>
\>>
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06-25-2018, 05:20 AM
Post: #27
RE: how to pronounce numbers
Hello,

126.544
Cent vintgt-quatre virgule cinq cent quarante-quatre

En french, we do not "remove" higher numerals multipliers like americans do:
199 is NEVER pronounced as one nintynine, but always one hundred and ninty nine.

We do use "hundreds" with multipliers in the 11 to 19 range, but prety much only for dates: 1974 = dix-neuf cent soixante-quatorze (19*100 60+14, literraly).

Where there is conciderable wiggle room is in the decimal place where the fractional part is "most often" said as a full integer number. Unless it is very large. Then you are free to group the digits by 2, 3, or even more to make it easier for the listener. With the issue of how to deal with leading 0s...

And I leave you with one of the most wonderfull numbers of the French language:
98 = Quatre-vingt-dix-huit or: For Twenty and ten eight! How wonderful!

Cyrille

Although I work for the HP calculator group, the views and opinions I post here are my own. I do not speak for HP.
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06-25-2018, 06:47 AM
Post: #28
RE: how to pronounce numbers
I've been tempted to mention the interesting French approach to the seventies, eighties and nineties. I've resisted until now. English, of course, has the crazy teens: eleven, twelve, thirteen, ... nineteen plus several other schemes: four score and seven years ago.

Then there is the disagreement about the higher powers of ten: is a billion 109 or 1012?


We should next move onto digit grouping (comma, dot, space and probably several other symbols). From Wikipedia: 67,89,000,00,00,000 is interesting.


Pauli
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06-25-2018, 07:42 AM
Post: #29
RE: how to pronounce numbers
Another interesting question is how the various representations of numbers help (or hinder) the doing of mathematics...
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06-25-2018, 10:03 AM (This post was last modified: 06-25-2018 02:04 PM by StephenG1CMZ.)
Post: #30
RE: how to pronounce numbers
When pronouncing a sequence of digits, I usually pronunce 0 as "oh" - and in the case of telephone numbers and the like, leading zeros are pronounced, whereas in some cases they might be silent.

But on a few recent telephone calls to call centres, for example to give bank account numbers, I have noticed this can cause confusion, and I have to say" Zero" (or "Nought") instead to the human staff, who give the impression they are typing in the letter "O" into a numeric field, and are puzzled that it is not working.

5&9: Also, note that. In English "five" and "nine" can be confused over a noisy radio channel, so coastguards and the like may pronunce these "fife" and "niner" to emphasise the difference.

Stephen Lewkowicz (G1CMZ)
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06-25-2018, 10:34 AM
Post: #31
RE: how to pronounce numbers
(06-25-2018 05:20 AM)cyrille de brébisson Wrote:  126.544
Cent vintgt-quatre virgule cinq cent quarante-quatre

Plus deux Smile

(06-25-2018 05:20 AM)cyrille de brébisson Wrote:  And I leave you with one of the most wonderfull numbers of the French language:
98 = Quatre-vingt-dix-huit or: For Twenty and ten eight! How wonderful!

Only in French French. The French-speaking Swiss or Belgians would say nonante-huit Smile
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06-25-2018, 11:04 AM (This post was last modified: 06-25-2018 11:04 AM by Dieter.)
Post: #32
RE: how to pronounce numbers
(06-23-2018 07:35 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  I've also heard "Drei Viertel Zwei," meaning a quarter to two, or three quarters of the way to two (from one), but that doesn't seem to be very common.

It is very common in certain regions of the German speaking countries. Take a look at the map on this website.

There even is a counterpart like "viertel zwei", meaning a quarter past one. In a way this also has its logic: a quarter of the hour between one and two has passed. Just as half an hour in "halb zwei".

(06-23-2018 07:35 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  "Viertel vor Zwei" is what I would use.

Yes, that's standard German.
At least in one half of the country. ;-)

Dieter
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06-25-2018, 12:34 PM
Post: #33
RE: how to pronounce numbers
(06-25-2018 03:27 AM)DavidM Wrote:  This is a messy-and-dirty RPL transcription of a routine I once used to create the text of the "body amount" of a check-printing application. I didn't bother including the cents part of the routine, as it merely generated "and xx/100" (xx being the two digits after the radix mark).

No, not at all! That's much better than I would get by trying to translate my old unstructered BASIC code from Portuguese into English and then to RPL. Thank you very much!

3333333333 --> three billion three hundred thirty-three million three hundred thirty-three thousand three hundred thirty-three

Also, that matches my understanding of "billion".

Thanks again,

Gerson.
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06-25-2018, 12:55 PM
Post: #34
RE: how to pronounce numbers
(06-25-2018 12:34 PM)Gerson W. Barbosa Wrote:  Also, that matches my understanding of "billion".

Another difference between British English and everyone else's English. Or at least it used to be.

One billion used to be understood as \(1000000^2\), one trillion as \(1000000^3\), one quadrillion as \(1000000^4\) etc. So, 3333333333 would have been "three thousand three hundred and thirty-three million three hundred and thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-three."

The "three billion three hundred and thirty-three million […]" number would have been written: 3000333333333.

Thankfully, this is more and more seldom the case and we're falling in line with the rest of the world so that there are fewer cases of misunderstanding.
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06-25-2018, 01:22 PM
Post: #35
RE: how to pronounce numbers
(06-25-2018 12:55 PM)grsbanks Wrote:  One billion used to be understood as \(1000000^2\), one trillion as \(1000000^3\), one quadrillion as \(1000000^4\) etc. So, 3333333333 would have been "three thousand three hundred and thirty-three million three hundred and thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-three."

The "three billion three hundred and thirty-three million […]" number would have been written: 3000333333333.

Thankfully, this is more and more seldom the case and we're falling in line with the rest of the world so that there are fewer cases of misunderstanding.

I'm reminded of Ira Gershwin's lyrics to "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off"... which of course can't be fully appreciated in written form, since it's the differences in pronunciation which give the song its character.

Perhaps we should just all adopt Roman Numerals as the standard and be done with it. Smile
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06-25-2018, 01:25 PM
Post: #36
RE: how to pronounce numbers
(06-25-2018 05:20 AM)cyrille de brébisson Wrote:  And I leave you with one of the most wonderfull numbers of the French language:
98 = Quatre-vingt-dix-huit or: For Twenty and ten eight! How wonderful!

Isn't Twenty and ten eight = 100, not 98?

--Bob Prosperi
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06-25-2018, 02:03 PM
Post: #37
RE: how to pronounce numbers
(06-25-2018 01:25 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  
(06-25-2018 05:20 AM)cyrille de brébisson Wrote:  And I leave you with one of the most wonderfull numbers of the French language:
98 = Quatre-vingt-dix-huit or: For Twenty and ten eight! How wonderful!

Isn't Twenty and ten eight = 100, not 98?

Cyrille meant Four Twenty and ten eight, that is, 4*20 + 18 = 98. Just a typo (‘for’ for ‘four’).

Moi, je préfère quatre-vingt-dix-sept :-)
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06-25-2018, 02:10 PM (This post was last modified: 06-25-2018 02:29 PM by StephenG1CMZ.)
Post: #38
RE: how to pronounce numbers
(06-25-2018 01:22 PM)DavidM Wrote:  
(06-25-2018 12:55 PM)grsbanks Wrote:  One billion used to be understood as \(1000000^2\), one trillion as \(1000000^3\), one quadrillion as \(1000000^4\) etc. So, 3333333333 would have been "three thousand three hundred and thirty-three million three hundred and thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-three."

The "three billion three hundred and thirty-three million […]" number would have been written: 3000333333333.

Thankfully, this is more and more seldom the case and we're falling in line with the rest of the world so that there are fewer cases of misunderstanding.

I'm reminded of Ira Gershwin's lyrics to "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off"... which of course can't be fully appreciated in written form, since it's the differences in pronunciation which give the song its character.

Perhaps we should just all adopt Roman Numerals as the standard and be done with it. Smile

Unfortunately, Roman Numerals might not be as standard as you might imagine.
In modern Roman, IV is taken to mean 4 (i.e. if a smaller digit preceeds a larger, subtract).
But in older Roman, IV sometimes simply meant 6, just like VI, whilst 4 would be IIII.

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06-25-2018, 03:30 PM (This post was last modified: 06-25-2018 03:30 PM by 3298.)
Post: #39
RE: how to pronounce numbers
This thread reminds me of a Code Golf contest I participated in a few years ago. (The results are still online, by the way.) The challenge included writing numbers using letters, in English language. In the private messages between the guy who posted the challenge and me there was some disagreement over the letters used to represent 40. He said "forty", my program produced "fourty" (which I perceived as correct) as a side effect of my optimizations (in code golf the size of a program determines its score; this particular optimization used the same list of strings for -teen and -ty). As I'm typing this post, my spellchecker is marking my version as wrong (and it marks itself too - oh the irony), but as I'm not the only contestant who put the u in there (e.g. the Java entry that isn't mine explicitly contains the string "fourty" which could have been altered without side-effects other than an improved score), I guess this isn't as easy as the spellchecker makes it appear. In school I was taught "fourty" too, but this is not an English-speaking country, so that alone doesn't mean a lot. Regional differences again or what ...? Could a native speaker please enlighten me?
(Okay, that was about spelling instead of pronunciation, but close enough.)
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06-25-2018, 03:33 PM
Post: #40
RE: how to pronounce numbers
(06-25-2018 03:30 PM)3298 Wrote:  Could a native speaker please enlighten me?

40 = forty as far as I'm concerned.

https://writingexplained.org/forty-or-fourty-difference
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