number format and semantic hairsplitting in China

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Fri May 8 13:59:08 UTC 2009


At 5/8/2009 12:46 AM, Randy Alexander wrote:
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>
>On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 1:33 AM, Michael Sheehan <Wordmall at aol.com> wrote:
> >
> > Is there a real difference between these two numbers?
> >
> > One hundred fifteen
> > One hundred and fifteen
> >
> > In other words, does the coordinating conjunction change the meaning in any
> > way, or is there a situation in which it is more desirable?
>
>I'm going to be more bold than Arnold in answering: no, there's no
>meaning difference.  There is only a difference in format.  The only
>factors that could contribute to a preference in use are space
>limitations, and (a very slight) degree of formality, or other
>format-related factors.

I have a slightly (or is it sleightly?) feel of difference in style
(perhaps what Randy has called formality), but I'm unable to define
the difference verbally.

Joel

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