Pronouncing decimal numbers

[Ken Blake]

Good, but actually I was asking Peter, who is in Australia, and might not.

[rbowman]

I had a neighbor with a 'lumber room' that most people would refer to as a junk closet. It isn't in common use but I think 'useless crap' is one definition of lumber.

Timber here refers to the Ponderosa pine up on the hillside. After you fell it and send it to a lumber mill it becomes lumber. 'Timberbeast' is local slang for a logger, who might also be called a 'lumberjack'. No reason to be consistent.

Glue laminated timber turns dimensional lumber back into timber :)

Which can become the adjective lumbering or the noun that refers to the timber industry.

[rbowman]

Or a log...

While I've loaded lumber on a flatbed I've never driven a log truck.

[rbowman]

They've survived both Home Depot and Lowe's coming to town. A couple of other lumber yards didn't. Most of the lumber mills are gone too.

They're old school and if you want a rough cut 2x4 you'll be going to Hunt's Timbers.

[Peter Moylan]

Yes, I vaguely recall a song to that effect. Ah, here it is.

I see that you are a logger, and not just a common bum, 'Cause nobody but a logger stirs his coffee with is thumb.

[Commander Kinsey]

"Two and three five four"? I wouldn't even begin to expect that to be a decimal, I'd think that meant the sum "2+354". How many boxes you got there? Four and six and seven makes 17.

I don't understand you. A number is already a representation. If I'm holding two apples, I really have them. If I speak the words "two apples", they might not be mine.

[Commander Kinsey]

That is terribly terribly wrong. A hundred twenty sounds like you're multiplying. For example a hundred boxes of twenty objects.

Why can't Americans say damn?

[Commander Kinsey]

We used to do that in the UK - "two and six" was two shillings and six pence. But since decimalisation, I only hear "four pounds seventy two", never "four and seventy two".

Everything about the Google Home is sloppy. It also says "thirty four ex ninety six" to mean multiplication.

I asked it what 50 factorial was, and was told it's 30 vigentillion 414 novendicillion 93 octidiciliion 201 septendicillion 713 sexticillion 376 quindicillion.

100 factorial confuses it: 93326215449318 oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh.

[Commander Kinsey]

For a price or the time?

Why does the military think there are 100 hours in 1 hour? "Oh eight hundred hours" - no, 8 hours, not 800.

[Ken Blake]

Yep!

I don't stir my coffee with my thumb or anything else, since I add nothing to it.

[micky]

No, it's very, very right.

To you, perhaps.

No.

Some can. I don't.

[Ken Blake]

I don't know what's right, but I know what I say and what sounds right to me: "a hundred twenty" or "one hundred twenty."

[Commander Kinsey]

Youtube guessed I might like this:

[Commander Kinsey]

Mine pissed on the monitors and there are now perfect circles (?!) of black.

BTW those are tiny monitors, this one is 40".

[Commander Kinsey]

Big block Chevy? Buggers broadcasting communism?

Ah, this explains it.

There are 150 meanings. Is one rude?

[Commander Kinsey]

I've had as many as 15. They come and go, they don't appreciate a good home.

[rbowman]

I didn't need the illustration this early in the goddam morning. Reminds me of the website of a guy who was very knowledgeable about Java. It was quite useful as long as you didn't take a wrong turn into his personal pages.

[Commander Kinsey]

Whatever happened to vulgar and improper fractions? I'm sure I was taught at primary school:

3/6 - should be simplified to 1/2.

23/20 - should be written as 1 3/20.

One of these was called vulgar and one improper (I can't remember which).

But if you look up "vulgar fraction" now, it just seems to be a normal fraction! That can't be right, surely "vulgar" implies there's something wrong or unusual about the fraction?

If you look up improper fraction, you get my second example.

[Commander Kinsey]

How absurd. Would you even say 3.5 instead of 3 and a half?

In the UK, if an old carpenter says "mill" he may mean thousandths of an inch.

I thought that was the case worldwide. I've never heard and for the point, which as in your example is very ambiguous and therefore outright stupid.

[Commander Kinsey]

Why do I see stupid things like "There are six (6) items of baggage allowed on the plane". I know what a six is!!! You don't have to explain it in brackets!!!

And now. For example you wouldn't say "eight hundred ninety two" for 892.

I never wrote words on cheques (check has an entirely different meaning, it means to make sure). I'd write "Fifty seven pounds 38 pence". After all, the reason is to make sure someone doesn't alter the digits to make the value higher. I don't care enough about them stealing pence to bother writing that in words.