Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers/Archive 51

message: While we currently have the manual say spelling out numbers up to 10, I propose that we at least in one sentence explain the standard formal English usage of spelling out numbers up to 100. I was asked by an editor "why spell out "fifty" and not "five hundred and sixty-two" and responded that it was formal English practice because it was simpler and less complex verbiage for numbers up to 100. We could also do this implicitly by separating numbers above 100 from those between 10 and 100, because we really don't want people spelling out (as they "may") 14583, however this would be still more complex because it should still be acceptable to spell out "thirty million". A suggestion above from the MLA handbook about spelling numbers out that can be put into one or two words may be the way, but this does seem unusual and it may be difficult to word it properly? —Centrx→Talk 23:54, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Jimp 02:49, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal: Mention about spelling out numbers up to 100 

message: In the examples, why does GBP have a space before the digits but the other currencies have no space? -- SGBailey 12:19, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not only GBP, but also CNR has a space. This gives away the key: the $ sign is customarily written attached to the numbers. This is retained if the $ is preceded by a precision which dolar is meant. The all-letter abbreviations like BGP and CNR are followed by a space. −Woodstone 14:52, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

text: No.  "$123 USD" is against the guideline.  It should be, in the case of articles about the United States, "$123"; in the case of international articles, "US$123", and in the case of technical/currency-specific articles (or wherever else it seems necessary), "USD 123".  Neonumbers 04:26, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Currency 

message: For those interested in making unit formats consistent, please feel free to use my 'unitformatter.js' tool. 
To get the tool, copy the entire contents of User:Bobblewik/monobook.js to your own monobook. Then follow the instructions in your monobook to clear the cache (i.e. press Ctrl-Shift-R in Firefox, or Ctrl-F5 in IE) before it will work. To make the tool work, simply click on the 'units' tab in edit mode.
Regards. bobblewik 12:57, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Clarification. After you activate the "edit this page" tab, the tool places a few tabs to the right at the very top of the page. When you enter either of those tabs, the tool makes a number of substitutions and shows them in "differences" mode. It is then up to you to cancel, save or continue editing. −Woodstone 17:14, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unit format tool 

message: It is common English style to have numbers up to 100 spelled out, and under the MOS, acceptable. However, the current version lumps numbers 10 through 100 together with numbers 100 and up. While it is in formal use appropriate to have "eighty-seven" spelled out, it is rare to have "five hundred and sixty-seven" and totally inappropriate to have "one million, four hundred and fifty-six thousand, seven hundred...", which the MOS read literally currently accepts. Therefore, numbers 10 through 100 must be distinguished from those above 100. Here is probably the simplest solution:
:*Numbers between ten (10) and one hundred (100) may be written as numerals or spelled out in words. Within each article, style should be consistent.
:*Numbers above one hundred (100) must be written as numerals, except at the beginning of a sentence.
Note that one problem with this is it forbids "five hundred" or "ten million", which with a little wording could be corrected.
There are two other possibilities. First, we can explicitly recommend that all numbers between 0 and 100 be spelled out as words in the body/prose/text of an article. Second, per suggestion above, at Numbers from zero to ten which states it is MLA style, we can recommend that numbers that can be written out in two words or less (e.g. "eighteen", "ninety-nine", "five hundred", "five million", but "101", "499", "5,100,000" or "5.1 million"). This is a convenient solution, and corrects the problem with the above, simple solution. See also Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Numbers from zero to ten and Proposal: Mention about spelling out numbers up to 100. —Centrx→talk • 22:58, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I like your second possibility ("written out if in two words or less").  It sums it up nicely, I never thought of it that way.  Neonumbers 06:03, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal for section [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Numbers in words|Numbers in words]] 

message: I have added the sentence "Note there is no space between the numeral and the symbol %." to the percentage section. This is based on Chicago Manual of Style, 14th ed., p. 299, section 8.18. My reason for adding it is that I have a hard time remembering this convention and have to look it up frequently. --Gerry Ashton 16:42, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: No space with % symbol

message: In the section on different calendars it says to use the Julian calendar for dates before 1582-10-15. 
Dates before the adoption of the Gregorian calendar on 1582-10-15 should usually be given in the Julian calendar. The Julian day and month should not be converted to the Gregorian calendar, but the start of the Julian year should be taken to be 1 January (see below for more details).
I'm not totally clear on what this means. For example in citing history it may not be clear whether a date is Julian or Gregorian. On the other hand in using simulations (such as astronomical software) the dates are often presented as Gregorian dates no matter how far back the simulation goes. In addition, the Julian calendar is ambiguous for the starting year (see Julian calendar), so I assume this means use a Julian calendar with the AD/BC epoch. However, it's not entirely clear. Perhaps should simply say Gregorian calendar as the default unless there's some clear reason to use the Julian calendar. Is this common in the field of history to explicitly use Julian calendar dates before the first adoption of the Gregorian calendar? My assumption when I read Julius Cesear adopted the Julian calendar in 46 BC is that this is a Gregorian date: that this is 2051 years ago (with no 0 year in either calendar). Can anyone clarify this? Thanks in advance. --Cplot 06:31, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: After posing the question above I did find a useful tool that perhaps could be linked to in the manual of style to help make conversions. It's a | calendar conversion calculator for many different calendars (including Gregorian and Julian). It doesn't really answer my question, but I thought others would find it useful. It may also help in thinking through this issue. --Cplot 06:51, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the reply that clear things up for me. I think some abridged version of this explanation could be included in the manual of style. Perhaps I take a stab at it. --Cplot 17:51, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Different calendars