Consistency for Numbers

Margie Wakeman WellsNumbers Leave a Comment

Great seeing so many “old” familiar faces at DRA. Wow. It has been a few years. Glad to see you thriving in this wonderful field.

There was a recent discussion on numbers and their form within a sentence. Overriding all the rules for numbers is the rule for consistency: If there are numbers that measure the same thing or the same quality in a sentence, they should be in the same form.

…There were 7 girls and 15 boys…
…We bought it for $758,000 and sold it for $1,200,000…

This rule that numbers measuring the same thing is followed when the numbers are in the same general area of the transcript. If “$15.00” is mentioned on page 78 as a cost of piping and it is “$2,390” on page 234, there is no issue of consistency.

Happy punctuating!

Margie

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