this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2026
487 points (98.8% liked)
People Twitter
10338 readers
2375 users here now
People tweeting stuff. We allow tweets from anyone.
RULES:
- Mark NSFW content.
- No doxxing people.
- Must be a pic of the tweet or similar. No direct links to the tweet.
- No international politcs
- Be excellent to each other.
- Provide an archived link to the tweet (or similar) being shown if it's a major celebrity, figure or any politician. If you replace the "x" at their site with xcancel (so it beomes xcancel.com), and you're not on mobile, it will save video. https://web.archive.org/save is another great option. Archive.is is no longer recommended because they remove/alter content.
- If a tweet (or similar) makes a statement of fact, either mark it as "satire" in the body or provide the original source link backing up the statement
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Isn’t there a style rule where if it’s a number greater than ten you use digits?
Though if you say a thousand, that’s different than saying “a 1,000” which is saying “a one thousand”, which you wouldn’t write.
Not that I'm aware of, I was always taught to write out any number because it helps with the reader maintaining flow while reading. For the exact reasons we're discussing here, 'a thousand' and 'a 1,000' are functionally the same - but one breaks the readers train of thought a lot more easily than the other. Whereas dates and times are used so frequently that writing out 31/12/2026 or 10:00 AM really doesn't impact their ability to read them on a page.
At least, that's what I was taught. Maybe there's a different line of thinking I'm not aware of, though the rule you're talking about sounds like a business English rule - and I disagree with business English.
You talk about reader maintaining flow. And I think for exactly that reason you are supposed to use digits when the number is of a certain size. Like if I say, there are six hundred and seventy three buildings in the city. To me it’s much clearer to write there are 673 buildings in the city. Whatever “rule” I’m thinking of I seem to recall you spell out smaller numbers. Like you would write “there are three files” as opposed to “there are 3 files.” Everyone at work does the latter which always annoys me, though they also commit much more egregious mistakes in their emails and other writings.