this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2024
456 points (97.5% liked)

Science Memes

10988 readers
1865 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21049862

The only numbers I will ever spell are one and zero, and only when using them as a pronoun, or for emphasis, respectively.

Is there ever a reason to not to use symbols when dealing with numbers? Why would "fourteen whatevers" ever be preferable to "14 whatevers". It's just so much easier to read numbers as symbols, not spelled out.

(Caveat, not including multipliers, like "273 billion").

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] MisterFrog@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Can I ask why, though? I'm also an engineer and I just never spell it out, if I can avoid it (so far, luckily, haven't had push back since I'm on delivery and not proposals or anything like that.)

To me, it's just more annoying to read it as words, and no matter what you do, mistakes can still happen, including when it's spelled out.

Just my 2 cents.

[–] BodePlotHole@lemmy.world 18 points 3 weeks ago

I work in MEP and our emails are always considered legal documents as they can be used as evidence if ever we are taken to court. So we always treat them very technical and try to over explain everything so clients/plan reviewers/contractors can't misinterpret. It's kind of an old school thing, but the head of our department is an old school guy.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago

I only spell out numbers as the first word of a sentence because idk how to capitalize in that situation.