number format

[Baker, John]

        I believe the rule may have been in my grade school arithmetic
book.  I've internalized it, though I no longer consider including "and"
to be an error.


John Baker



-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Arnold Zwicky
Sent: Friday, May 08, 2009 12:06 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: number format

what i said here back on 5/2/07:

i recall being taught at some point in school that things like "one
hundred and two", "two hundred and thirty", etc. were vulgar errors (in
both speech and writing), that "and" should never be used in such
expressions.  (this might have been an instance of Omit Needless Words).
the lesson seems not to have stuck with me, since i sometimes use one
version, sometimes the other.

but now i've spent 15 minutes looking through advice books of all sorts,
without finding anyone who has an opinion on the matter.  ah!
now i see that CMOS15 mentions "and" omission in passing, in connection
with an entirely different issue (not beginning  sentences with a
numeral).  p. 381 has the example sentence:

   One hundred and ten candidates were accepted. (_And_ may be omitted.)

let free variation reign!

.....

i still haven't found this "rule" in a reference book.  it seems to have
survived as an oral tradition, passed on by (some) schoolteachers.

arnold

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