English numerals
As a result, some style guides[example needed] recommend avoidance of the comma (,) as either separator and the use of the period (.)
Thus one-half would be written 0.5 in decimal, base ten notation, and fifty thousand as 50 000, and not 50.000 nor 50,000 nor 50000.
In British usage, this style is common for multiples of 100 between 1,000 and 2,000 (e.g. 1,500 as "fifteen hundred") but not for higher numbers.
These are: Many people have no direct experience of manipulating numbers this large, and many non-American readers may interpret billion as 1012 (even if they are young enough to have been taught otherwise at school); moreover, usage of the "long" billion is standard in some non-English-speaking countries.
The numbers past one trillion in the short scale, in ascending powers of 1000, are as follows: quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion, septillion, octillion, nonillion, decillion, undecillion, duodecillion, tredecillion, quattuordecillion, quindecillion, sexdecillion, septendecillion, octodecillion, novemdecillion and vigintillion (which is 10 to the 63rd power, or a one followed by 63 zeros).
The highest number in this series listed in modern dictionaries is centillion, which is 10 to the 303rd power.
The terms arab, kharab, padm and shankh are more commonly found in old books on Indian mathematics.
Here are some approximate composite large numbers in American English: Often, large numbers are written with (preferably non-breaking) half-spaces or thin spaces separating the thousands (and, sometimes, with normal spaces or apostrophes) instead of commas—to ensure that confusion is not caused in countries where a decimal comma is used.
This is particularly common in Canada where the use of Celsius in weather forecasting means that temperatures can regularly drift above and below zero at certain times of year.
Ordinal numbers refer to a position (also called index or rank) in a sequence.
Common ordinals include: Zeroth only has a meaning when counting starts with zero, which happens in a mathematical or computer science context.
Higher ordinals are not often written in words, unless they are round numbers (thousandth, millionth, billionth).
NB: "D" still often denotes "second" and "third" in the numeric designations of units in the US armed forces, for example, 533d Squadron, and in legal citations for the second and third series of case reporters.
Thus "fifth" can mean the element between fourth and sixth, or the fraction created by dividing the unit into five pieces.
Here are some common English fractions, or partitive numerals:[8] Alternatively, and for greater numbers, one may say for 1⁄2 "one over two", for 5⁄8 "five over eight", and so on.
This formality is often dropped in common speech and is steadily disappearing in instruction in mathematics and science as well as in international American schools.
In many non-English languages a full-stop/period at the bottom of the line is used as a thousands separator with a comma being used as the decimal point.
With few exceptions, most grammatical texts rule that the numbers zero to nine inclusive should be "written out" – instead of "1" and "2", one would write "one" and "two".
On the other hand, digits might be more commonly used in technical or financial articles, where many figures are discussed.
Colloquial English's small vocabulary of empty or indefinite numbers can be employed when there is uncertainty as to the precise number to use, but it is desirable to define a general range: specifically, the terms "umpteen", "umpty", and "zillion".
These are derived etymologically from the range affixes: The prefix "ump-" is added to the first two suffixes to produce the empty numbers "umpteen" and "umpty": derived from the onomatopoeic sound on the telegraph key used by Morse operators.
