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Number Niggle

An [old] Evening Post top headline (22 February 93), reads: "Telecom's first cut: 835 jobs go."

But the first sentence of this article is "More than 830 Telecom workers lost their jobs today." You see, it is poor style to start a sentence with a numeral, 835.

The subterfuge is -- take something off (5) and then say more than that number, 830.

Had it been 830 jobs lost, would the article have said "more than 800", for safety?

Only if 800 workers had lost their jobs you would have "Eight hundred, About 800, Exactly 800", etc. to choose from. The qualifier introduces a new tone to the pure number.

It seems to me that numbers suffer from a poor self esteem image in written English, if they cannot say their quantity plainly.

Number 835 is very close to "One twelfth of a myriad." I use the form "number 835" only when speaking of a number per se.

It would be wrong to speak of "Number 835 jobs...", or "quantity 835 jobs..." or "Many (835) jobs...".

Does anyone have a solution to my problem? How to say, 835 Telecom workers lost their jobs.

Donald S McDonald, Wellington