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death toll

deka

5/28/2009 1:55:00 PM

Hi, I am a Brazilian girl and I have a doubt abour numbers in English.
I have a book in English where there is a tabel on cumulative civilian
death toll in wars. They put "100s africans, 1000s civil war..." and I
would like to know the meaning of the little "s" after the numbers.
Tanks very much.
12 Answers

Eleanor McHugh

5/28/2009 2:09:00 PM

0

On 28 May 2009, at 15:01, deka wrote:
> Hi, I am a Brazilian girl and I have a doubt abour numbers in English.
> I have a book in English where there is a tabel on cumulative civilian
> death toll in wars. They put "100s africans, 1000s civil war..." and I
> would like to know the meaning of the little "s" after the numbers.
> Tanks very much.

100s reads as 'hundreds'
1000s reads as 'thousands'


Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-...
----
raise ArgumentError unless @reality.responds_to? :reason

deka

5/28/2009 2:14:00 PM

0

On 28 maio, 11:09, Eleanor McHugh <elea...@games-with-brains.com>
wrote:
> On 28 May 2009, at 15:01, deka wrote:
>
> > Hi, I am a Brazilian girl and I have a doubt abour numbers in English.
> > I have a book in English where there is a tabel on cumulative civilian
> > death toll in wars. They put "100s africans, 1000s civil war..." and I
> > would like to know the meaning of the little "s" after the numbers.
> > Tanks very much.
>
> 100s reads as 'hundreds'
> 1000s reads as 'thousands'
>
> Ellie
>
> Eleanor McHugh
> Games With Brainshttp://slides.games-with-...
> ----
> raise ArgumentError unless @reality.responds_to? :reason

Ellie,
Thank you very much!

pjb

5/28/2009 2:24:00 PM

0

deka <rocha.deka@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi, I am a Brazilian girl and I have a doubt abour numbers in English.
> I have a book in English where there is a table on cumulative civilian
> death toll in wars. They put "100s africans, 1000s civil war..." and I
> would like to know the meaning of the little "s" after the numbers.

Notice that this is very bad typological style to print digits in
these cases. They should have spelled them out: "hundreds of
africans, thousands of civil wars".



(It could be tolerated for decades, like the 60s or the 70s (the
sixties, the seventies), but this is not "Y2K-compliant", and writting
1960s is not good style either, so even in this case it's better to
spell the numbers out).


--
__Pascal Bourguignon__

Eleanor McHugh

5/28/2009 2:56:00 PM

0

On 28 May 2009, at 15:25, Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
> deka <rocha.deka@gmail.com> writes:
>> Hi, I am a Brazilian girl and I have a doubt abour numbers in
>> English.
>> I have a book in English where there is a table on cumulative
>> civilian
>> death toll in wars. They put "100s africans, 1000s civil war..."
>> and I
>> would like to know the meaning of the little "s" after the numbers.
>
> Notice that this is very bad typological style to print digits in
> these cases. They should have spelled them out: "hundreds of
> africans, thousands of civil wars".

In prose yes, but for table headers space considerations are relevant
and I've seen the same approach used in numerous publications.

> (It could be tolerated for decades, like the 60s or the 70s (the
> sixties, the seventies), but this is not "Y2K-compliant", and writting
> 1960s is not good style either, so even in this case it's better to
> spell the numbers out).

I'd say that 1960s would be a much more common occurrence than
nineteen sixties, although 60s and sixties probably are more evenly
distributed in my reading.


Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-...
----
raise ArgumentError unless @reality.responds_to? :reason

Roger Pack

5/28/2009 6:24:00 PM

0

Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
> deka <rocha.deka@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Hi, I am a Brazilian girl and I have a doubt abour numbers in English.
>> I have a book in English where there is a table on cumulative civilian
>> death toll in wars. They put "100s africans, 1000s civil war..." and I
>> would like to know the meaning of the little "s" after the numbers.
>
> Notice that this is very bad typological style to print digits in
> these cases. They should have spelled them out: "hundreds of
> africans, thousands of civil wars".

or at least written them as
100's and 1000's
-=r
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....

Eleanor McHugh

5/28/2009 6:31:00 PM

0

On 28 May 2009, at 19:23, Roger Pack wrote:
> Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
>> deka <rocha.deka@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> Hi, I am a Brazilian girl and I have a doubt abour numbers in
>>> English.
>>> I have a book in English where there is a table on cumulative
>>> civilian
>>> death toll in wars. They put "100s africans, 1000s civil war..."
>>> and I
>>> would like to know the meaning of the little "s" after the numbers.
>>
>> Notice that this is very bad typological style to print digits in
>> these cases. They should have spelled them out: "hundreds of
>> africans, thousands of civil wars".
>
> or at least written them as
> 100's and 1000's

Except that would in principle be 'of the hundred' and 'of the
thousand' as using the numeric form isn't an abbreviation and so an
apostrophe before the s isn't appropriate for pluralisation. It is
however an increasingly widespread usage (thanks to the inability of
many people to use the apostrophe correctly).


Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-...
----
raise ArgumentError unless @reality.responds_to? :reason

Robert Klemme

5/28/2009 6:50:00 PM

0

On 28.05.2009 20:30, Eleanor McHugh wrote:
> On 28 May 2009, at 19:23, Roger Pack wrote:
>> Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:

>>> Notice that this is very bad typological style to print digits in
>>> these cases. They should have spelled them out: "hundreds of
>>> africans, thousands of civil wars".
>> or at least written them as
>> 100's and 1000's
>
> Except that would in principle be 'of the hundred' and 'of the
> thousand' as using the numeric form isn't an abbreviation and so an
> apostrophe before the s isn't appropriate for pluralisation. It is
> however an increasingly widespread usage (thanks to the inability of
> many people to use the apostrophe correctly).

The same happens over here in Germany, just the other way round:
although German does not allow for an apostrophe when building a
genitive you can see "Dietmar's Hotel" and like phrases with increasing
frequency where "Dietmars Hotel" would have been correct. In the end we
will probably all speak some form of "English". :-)

Cheers

robert


--
remember.guy do |as, often| as.you_can - without end
http://blog.rubybestprac...

Eleanor McHugh

5/28/2009 9:09:00 PM

0

On 28 May 2009, at 19:55, Robert Klemme wrote:
> On 28.05.2009 20:30, Eleanor McHugh wrote:
>> On 28 May 2009, at 19:23, Roger Pack wrote:
>>> Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
>
>>>> Notice that this is very bad typological style to print digits in
>>>> these cases. They should have spelled them out: "hundreds of
>>>> africans, thousands of civil wars".
>>> or at least written them as
>>> 100's and 1000's
>> Except that would in principle be 'of the hundred' and 'of the
>> thousand' as using the numeric form isn't an abbreviation and so
>> an apostrophe before the s isn't appropriate for pluralisation. It
>> is however an increasingly widespread usage (thanks to the
>> inability of many people to use the apostrophe correctly).
>
> The same happens over here in Germany, just the other way round:
> although German does not allow for an apostrophe when building a
> genitive you can see "Dietmar's Hotel" and like phrases with
> increasing frequency where "Dietmars Hotel" would have been
> correct. In the end we will probably all speak some form of
> "English". :-)

There is a school of thought which believes all punctuation is evil...


Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-...
----
raise ArgumentError unless @reality.responds_to? :reason

Srijayanth Sridhar

5/29/2009 6:12:00 AM

0

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

Lol, this could quickly spiral into another beat the dead horse session aka
pythonic indentation. Or was it the other way around?

Jayanth

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 2:38 AM, Eleanor McHugh <
eleanor@games-with-brains.com> wrote:

> On 28 May 2009, at 19:55, Robert Klemme wrote:
>
>> On 28.05.2009 20:30, Eleanor McHugh wrote:
>>
>>> On 28 May 2009, at 19:23, Roger Pack wrote:
>>>
>>>> Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
>>>>
>>>
>> Notice that this is very bad typological style to print digits in
>>>>> these cases. They should have spelled them out: "hundreds of
>>>>> africans, thousands of civil wars".
>>>>>
>>>> or at least written them as
>>>> 100's and 1000's
>>>>
>>> Except that would in principle be 'of the hundred' and 'of the thousand'
>>> as using the numeric form isn't an abbreviation and so an apostrophe before
>>> the s isn't appropriate for pluralisation. It is however an increasingly
>>> widespread usage (thanks to the inability of many people to use the
>>> apostrophe correctly).
>>>
>>
>> The same happens over here in Germany, just the other way round: although
>> German does not allow for an apostrophe when building a genitive you can see
>> "Dietmar's Hotel" and like phrases with increasing frequency where "Dietmars
>> Hotel" would have been correct. In the end we will probably all speak some
>> form of "English". :-)
>>
>
> There is a school of thought which believes all punctuation is evil...
>
>
>
> Ellie
>
> Eleanor McHugh
> Games With Brains
> http://slides.games-with-...
> ----
> raise ArgumentError unless @reality.responds_to? :reason
>
>
>

Robert Klemme

5/29/2009 6:15:00 AM

0

2009/5/29 Srijayanth Sridhar <srijayanth@gmail.com>:
> Lol, this could quickly spiral into another beat the dead horse session aka
> pythonic indentation. Or was it the other way around?

It was: the dead horse beat Python with its indentation.

robert

--
remember.guy do |as, often| as.you_can - without end
http://blog.rubybestprac...