I generally follow this guide. https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/writing-numbers-rules But I'm curious to know what rules others follow so I can maybe find methods that might work better.
I think it depends on what your writing. In journalism there are certain rules for numbers, following the AP Style (news stories) or the Chicago Manuel (magazine stories). But in fiction or literary works I more often than not see all numbers (including times) spelled out so that's what I tend to do. I do use numbers for dates, though, again what I've come custom to reading fiction. I think the most important thing is to stay consistent.
I wasn't acutely aware of rules regarding numbers. Just some things I picked up here and there. I prefer to spell numbers, both under and over ten. When you talk about Earth's age (and depending on who you ask), you end up in the billions and one billion is a lot easier to read than 1.000.000.000. Plus, as you can see, I've been taught to use the period to separate the thousands. Using the comma is for pricing, as far as I'm concerned. Spelling it out negates that problem as well. Granted, Earth's age is not something that comes up often.
The rule I've been using (since hearing it from naomasa) is to spell them out under a hundred, and for a hundred and over, use numerals. I guess I just broke that, didn't I? I consider "a hundred" to be a term, and I think it works better to write it that way than to say for instance "to spell them out under 100, and for 100 and over..." Yeah, that way it comes across as "one hundred" rather than "a hundred,"which sounds better to me. I'm pretty flexible really, it just depends on the situation. And if I wanted to convey 101, I'd do it that way rather than write out "a hundred and one." Too complicated. But really, it depends on the situation and what feels appropriate I suppose. I don't have any hard and fast rules for it. What I said at the beginning is just a rule of thumb.
Interesting. So you use the decimal comma instead of the decimal point, is that it? For example if I had one thousand and a fraction of something, I would write 1,000.43 potatoes. You would write it 1.000,43 potatoes?
Thank you! I knew it wasn't just "comma" and "period," but I just couldn't remember "decimal." Even though, I realize now, deci literally indicates a thousand... So, yeah. Your 1.000,42 potatoes (minus one, for Lord Adams) would cost €300,13. It's caused a lovely bunch of problems between myself and the programmers who did some wholly unnecessary stuff for a consumer show I work on. All the pricing they did showed up with the decimal point, and nobody was available to fix it in the software, because programmers apparently don't work weekends. And also just now, when I calculated the price of one-thousand point forty-two potatoes and I got number that didn't make any sense because the calculator automatically turned the decimal comma into a decimal point... Oh. And I just did too, writing it out.
