A colleague posed the question to me of whether she should write "thirty two" or "thirty-two".

Now I'm sure that we'll all agree here that this isn't a matter of grammar. It's possibly a matter of spelling but mostly a matter of style. Neither is wrong as such but the former may well go against whatever style guide your organisation uses. I gave a detailed answer but wanted to check something and turned to the internet.

Here I found something that seemed a bit peculiar to me. I know, of course that for larger numbers we in the UK write "and" where people in the US usually don't.

However one site I visited suggested that some in the US take "and" in writing to be the same as "point" so that they read

one hundred seventy-three as 173 but
one hundred and seventy-three as 100.73.

Is this actually true?
Has anyone in the US ever encountered this interpretation? It's completely new to me.

I would assume, as you have, that it is 173. To arrive at the other number, they would have to say "hundredth" or "thousandth" after the numeral to indicate a decimal.

I agree.

Me too.

Never seen or heard of it. I would "read" the "and" one as 173 also.

All as I thought. There is quite a lot of crap on the internet. It's probably one person's idiosyncratic idea that they are trying to spread.
There is probably no bit of peeving that's so extreme that it isn't believed by somebody somewhere.

Could it be they were talking about money? I would say, for example, "One hundred dollars and seventy three cents."

That could be the answer, Kalleh!

quote:

and seventy three cents."

But you've included additional information.

quote:

Originally posted by Proofreader:

quote:

and seventy three cents."

But you've included additional information.

I think that was just for clarity. Proof.

If I were giving the price of an item costing $99.73 I might well say "Ninety-nine seventy three". For $100.73 I could conceivably add the "and" to show I didn't mean $173.00.

Yes, I would, too.

quote:

quote:and seventy three cents." But you've included additional information. I think that was just for clarity. Proof.

We weren't discussing specific numbers, like a cash transaction. The question was did "and" indicate a decimal or not. Adding "cents" makes it obvious that it is a decimal while without the word there is some ambiguity (at least to some people).

Proof, you are right; that wasn't the specific question. My thought was that maybe that's how the comment came about. Or maybe not. Who knows.