from the link Jennifer Bell at ProSoft put up. Gosh! [In class, we broke up the rest of the above “wall of words” into additional, shorter, subdivisions.].
), Posted in Selected Usages Leave a Comment. Why, oh why do people persist in reiterating numbers? In contrast: I use both em-dashes and parentheticals in contracts — albeit judiciously — when they serve the ultimate purpose of every contract: To educate, and sometimes, to persuade, the reader. It reads like this: For purchases through any other retail sales channel, your initial service subscription will be a Year-Included Plan, which subsequently will roll over automatically into successive annual service plans at the then-published rate (currently $149.99/year, plus any applicable taxes).1 Upon activation, you will have the option of upgrading your service subscription to an All-In Plan, for a one (1)-time payment at the then-published All-In Plan upgrade rate (which currently is $599.99, plus any applicable taxes).4. Lawyers like to overkill everything, even if it seems stupid or redundant to do so. For example, consider these unpunctuated sentences: Now consider the same sentences with punctuation: Woman – without her, man would be a savage. Or do they think that I don’t know my numbers? What if I put a k in front of that accidentally? I (Jonathan) think (believe) that we should (ought) to (2) start (begin) to add numbers (digits) after Roman numerals, such as Section (part) IV (4). There are plenty of other things for you to worry about, hopefully you don’t worry about what the maximum stress on a support beam on a jet aircraft is, or if the number had a typo which might have been avoided by this method.
.”.
They used the lowercase l but the capital O. Are these the same people who think that the word “paradigm” is a useful word, or those who use “myself” when they mean “me”?
Great article and comments. Today. Generally, parentheses are of limited use in contracts. I personally (myself) prefer people who are not so categorical and think of different situations where such use may be legit and useful. I.e., if the writer had bad hand writing, the digits were good measure that everyone would have the same interpretation. And how about those people who insist on using acronyms for everything? The answer is that the written-out version is the one that banks accept as the correct version, and not the numeric entry. However, if the quotation is short, and the sentence introducing it is more important, the full stop is put outside the quotation marks. Though when I write a document to be published formally I’ll write the title in its entirety the first time with the initial-ism in parenthesizes immediately following. So our aircraft maintenance document would read: “Check the fuse age (fuse age) every month.
I like your point on this, and I agree that it might make numbers easier to find in an agreement. For example: At the same time, commas should be used where necessary to clarify meaning.
I just took a flight on U.S. Airways where a sign told me I could carry one (1) carry-on bag on the plane. I am a Registered Nurse and need to be accurate when giving out medication and doses, read from a prescription. It’s just two opportunities to screw up. As an example, the exponent of this is Japanese, which by some accounts is one of the most “advanced” languages, yet also one of the most confusing. they provide more visual separation than commas, which can help avoid later disputes about the meaning of complex clauses. I have always been irritated by this style of writing because it seems so insulting. I use VBA programming to double check all the quantities and such in my final documents against the calc sheets. I write the number and use parentheses, not because the reader is ‘dumb’, but it is formal and signifies a word that can also be written in a numerical expression. I did meet some nice girls in that class, though! “Should PTO be needed on an urgent basis…” becomes “If you have an unexpected need to take PTO…”, etc. A small error expressing “75” as “57” may be impossible to catch, but the meaning of “sevetny-five” is still clear, despite containing essentially the same error.
However, if the contents of all the schedules allow, as is the case in most ordinary course contracts, it is appropriate to start the contents immediately underneath the schedule title. So leave it as is. If you duplicate numbers so that they can be searched, why not duplicate everything in the document so it can be searched? You all as lawyers should surely understand this.
A retired fellow worked part time at the RadioShack store where I worked while I was in college in the early ‘70s. Hypocritical, but I bet I’m correct on that one (1). I agree with the clarity purpose. It also takes up less space, and makes a document look less “legal”. Shanté Paradigm Smalls” and had to let you know this actually happened. In those days, the radio signal tended to fade in and out during a message transmission. I was asked to prepare a document that used numbers, and dutifully used the dual format (e.g., “Four hundred dollars ($400)). But people aren’t computers: The contract drafter’s ultimate mission, I submit, is to educate the reader and, where necessary, persuade them to do what your client now wants them to do. I don’t know if that explanation is true, but it is a bit of legal history/lore that was passed down to me. Today, with a Word document, a 7 never looks like a 9. Also, computers that print “01” instead of “1” do so sometimes purely due to programmers who think “01” is more correct; and so the cycle perpetuates. That said, parentheses represent one way to eliminate one kind of syntactic ambiguity (see MSCD 8.128) and are unobjectionable when used, for example, in enumerating blocks of text and to create a defined term after an integrated definition. You can find similar lists of synonyms in wills, where you never simply “leave” your property to your heirs, but instead do something like “give, devise and bequeath” the property. What irks me, and is the topic of my blog, is the unnecessary repetition of numbers with parenthetical numbers. • When a sentence ends with a quotation which itself ends with a full stop, question mark, or exclamation mark, no further full stop is required. And regarding Kristy’s above comment of writing out “One (1) g – Chemical X” because the 1 is important … isn’t the g also important? “To elect two (2) member(s) to the Board of Directors each for a five (5) year term. If a lawyer argues that such poor writing is more correct, then I can only hope that such a misleading level of argument is never applied in a court case. One of the most unusual aspects of old-fashioned contract drafting was the belief among lawyers and judges that punctuation was unimportant. Having both solves that problem. The one they use when the two don’t agree is the written version. I work for an electrical contracting company, and when I’m typing up quotes/bids, I will often put numbers in parentheses without writing them out at all. For example, ‘a small, dark room’. • A sequence of three full stops (known as an ellipsis) indicates an omission from the text. People would come to them with agreements they needed, and the lawyers (no doubt standing at scrivener’s desks and using a feather and a pot of ink) would dutifully write the numbers out in words, followed by numerals in parentheses. For example, ‘cars, trucks, vans, and tractors’. For example, why don’t they then write a legal instruction “To buy one house (dwelling)” to prevent a spelling error that would make the sentence “To buy one horse”? Ken Adams says he doesn’t use em-dashes in contracts (or parentheticals either). For example: ‘1) I did not go to Paris yesterday, because the meeting was cancelled.’ 1) Here, the comma after yesterday makes it clear that the writer did not go to Paris, and the reason he or she did not go to Paris was that the meeting was cancelled. However, this may be a bridal-wedding-planning-tic-thing. Thank you for making ME laugh!
Anyway, because using the letter as the number could be confusing, they both spelled 10 and wrote the Arabic number, and put one of them in parentheses–I forget which. Why do we not repeat all the words, if people are so stupid? I have received nine (9) or ten (10) replies this month alone on this topic, so I know that it’s an irritant to many people.
The reason I did a web search on this is because my boss always does this in her writing. I follow the style of Chicago on numbers, typing them as words from one to ten, then I switch to numerals. Title Policy Endorsements: What Should I Get? If the parties end up disputing the number in a legal action, the number as it is written out is that one that controls. The advantages of simply writing the numerals only are obvious.
https://www.goodconversationbook.com/store/the-online-retreat, I did not read all the comments so this may have been mentioned. My sixty-five years of written communication have covered handwriting, cursive, type-writers, printing, publishing, engineering drawings, dot-matrix printing, etc. Typewriters (and I’m old enough to have used them, even non-electric ones! So, ten(10) is actually 100. needs duplicated words-and-digits, then do that. (An interesting note: This has become the most-read blog I have posted.
The parentheses adherents should be insisting that we write the word again, just in case we make an error the first time.
I’ve checked Chicago Manual of Styles and API no reference to do the spelling and number on an inventory list!!!! Brian, you completely nailed it. I find this really annoying as well. If material in parentheses ends a sentence, the period goes after the parentheses. They should not be used simply as an alternative to using short sentences or if there is any risk of ambiguity.
I’ve always thought the need to spell out numbers came from the days of the typewriter and the carbon copy. This at least makes the repetition easier to deal with.
From eleven onward, put them as Arabic numerals. The Texas Court of Appeals on Words-and-Digits Inconsistency, http://www.adamsdrafting.com/the-texas-court-of-appeals-on-words-and-digits-inconsistency/. This sounds logical. But above all, remember that writing is for communication.
I stumbled onto this discussion while questioning one of my own writing habits.
Charging Orders Can Limit the Value of a Guarantee. All Rights Reserved by KnowledgeBase. This would work too.
Assuming that I am perfect and will not make a mistake would be foolish. Just use the numbers, and ditch the parentheses. Too often we resort to saying that things are done because the lawyers require it. And yet people still continue doing it to this day (darn it!) Makes complete sense in that context, but (fortunately) we don’t hand-write legal agreements anymore , I asked my scribe to pen a response to your comment, and he said, “Just use your computer!”. For whatever reason, when attorneys draft contracts they don’t just write the numerals like regular people. Because it’s really insulting (insulting) and we don’t need numbers (numbers) in parentheses.
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