How would you punctuate these? I think these may be correct. a baby who weighed 7 pounds, 5 ounces a 7-pound, 5-ounce baby a man 5 feet, 10 inches tall a 5-foot, 10-inch man a 5-foot, 10-inch-tall man Good to all? Thanks.
For fiction maybe you do not have to be so precise - He was a giant of a man. She was short but real cute. In a factual context I would write - The police are looking for Joe Smith, brown hair, blue eyes, height around five feet ten. I am American with blue eyes, blonde hair and five feet ten inches tall. But I could be wrong. I am commenting, not because I know this to be absolute but because nobody else has. I await the onslaught.
In fiction I would spell out all numbers. I can see cases where you would give that sort of precision: a parent talking about a newborn baby would give exact pounds and ounces, and a somebody might quote the song lyric, "Five-foot two, eyes of blue. Oh, what those blue eyes could do..."
narrative description You could do something like this: The man was a little shorter than Bob, about two inches below his own six feet. As for the baby, a doctor or mother would mention its weight eventually, right? Keep it in dialogue.
nobody really answered you question, though the suggestions are ok... your wording punctuation is ok in all instances, but as noted by digitig, the numbers need to be spelled out...
I'm new at writing and just found this forum. I've been reading over some of the questions and see that this partially answers my question too. When you want to tallk about money do you use numbers? As in, She won $534,687.00. or He paid their bill of $2, 500.00 (do you add the word dollars,?) How would that be written?
Outside of dialogue, you should write out the words for the numerical value unless it has more than four or five significant digits. I would probably write out your first example numerically, the second as two thousand five hundred dollars or twenty-five hundred dollars. Within dialogue, you should always write out the amount in words.
unless we need to know the exact amount, it should be rounded off and spelled out, as cog said... if it's important to know the exact amount, that's the only time i can see it being ok to use the numbers... such as:
