6/1/2023 0 Comments Thirty second notes copy pasteThe same rules apply when numbers are part of the description, and whether the numbers are cardinal ( one, two, three …) or ordinal ( first, second, third …). Where the description follows the noun, you won’t need the hyphens: the report was easy to read. This is called a compound adjective (or compound modifier). Hyphens join words that work together as a unit to describe something that follows them in the sentence, eg an easy-to-read report. They had a full case of whisky, but they’ve drunk two fifths. He had a wallet stuffed with dollars and small change now he’s spent three quarters. However, while the possibility of ambiguity from leaving out the hyphens may be small, there are some areas for minor comical confusion, particularly in US English: In fact, opinion is divided over whether it is necessary to hyphenate fractions when they are nouns, so it does come down to your organisation’s house style. Use hyphens in fractions whenever they are written as words, whether they function as a noun ( two-thirds is more than one-half), adjective ( a two-thirds majority) or adverb ( two-thirds finished). And you won’t even have to stand up in front of the class to recite them. The answers may seem complicated, but don’t worry: much like your times tables, a lot of this is just about rules you have to learn. And, after all, helping to shed light on the more obscure points of punctuation is all part of our job. These might sound like arcane questions, but for anyone who has to write about numbers it could be one that comes up all the time. For instance, do you need hyphens in long numbers when you write them as words? Or in ages? What about in a fraction, like ‘two-thirds’? The question even extends to the punctuation you should use – especially hyphens. Things can get complicated when big numbers or long division are involved – not least when you have to write numbers out.
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