i think that in most formal english style not dealing with technical subjects the usual way would be five cats and elephants while universally in a true list or table it would be cats elephants but certainly within the context of finance or engineering or the like the numerical style is always used in the sandy koufax article line plus we have th day th day which is ok as is fifth day fourth day and in the same sentence starts starts fewer starts which is ok but the one thing that would strike a reader as wrong would be starts starts seven starts speaking for myself why change a consistent article when there are so many that are not consistent in need of improvement