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"In two thousand AND eight blah blah blah until two thousand AND thirteen blah blah blah" Is there some grammar rule that if you're stating a year you should say "and" within a number or is there a rule that in politics you should say "and" within a number?

Joe C
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    Which politicians? – Tristan r Jan 03 '14 at 18:10
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    There are some American grammar school teachers who teach that you should never say "and" within a number. I believe that the more colloquial way to do it is to use "and". Politicians like to sound colloquial. – Peter Shor Jan 03 '14 at 18:10
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    Peter, it is also the way to do it in the UK. Not including the word and seems to be an American thing in particular. – Tristan r Jan 03 '14 at 18:39
  • Leaving out ‘and’, while perfectly common in many dialects (and idiolects), just sounds plain wrong to me. It grates, even though I know there's nothing universally wrong with it. I'm sure there are many who feel the same about leaving the ‘and’ in. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jan 03 '14 at 18:39
  • There has been much written about this already. Long story short: for roughly 1000 years, it was convenient to split up the year by century and year; e.g., 1673 was "sixteen seventy-three". But when the year 2000 came along, that didn't seem to work so good any more. Throw in the by-the-decades old debate about how to pronounce 2001: A Space Odyssey, and things got even murkier the following year. Anyhow, one can read more here or here. – J.R. Jan 03 '14 at 22:33
  • @Tristan - for what it's worth, Grammar Girl agrees with your assertion. – J.R. Jan 03 '14 at 22:36
  • "And" in the middle of a number actually means it's a decimal point. "Two thousand and thirteen" actually means 2000.13. This is not a matter of preference or taste. It is a rule. – Joe C Jan 04 '14 at 01:17
  • Joe C, that is not the case in the UK. This is a US/UK difference. – Tristan r Jan 04 '14 at 01:33
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    @JoeC: No, that is not a rule. ‘And’ does not mean decimal point anywhere near as often as it is simply a part of a number exceeding 100 (or, if you count the archaic, ‘German’ way of putting the tens last, exceeding 20). If you want to denote decimal points, use ‘point’ for clarity; otherwise, you’re bound to be misunderstood. In fact, if you use ‘and’ like that without specifying what unit follows, I’d say you’re absolutely certain to be misunderstood. “Two thousand and thirteen” can just as well be thirteen millionths as hundredths. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jan 04 '14 at 01:50
  • @JoeC, I was taught that rule too. But that doesn't mean it's a rule that will actually help to understand how most people actually speak. – The Photon Jan 04 '14 at 01:58
  • Related http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/33381/how-to-write-numbers-in-words – Mari-Lou A Jan 04 '14 at 01:59
  • It's 'a rule' to drive on the left hand side of the road. But it's not a rule I'd demand that everyone should stick to in all situations. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 04 '14 at 12:25

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I don't know that it's a rule of grammar, but the word "and" can resolve ambiguity in expressing decimal numbers:

200.014 = two hundred and fourteen thousandths
0.214 = two hundred fourteen thousandths

Let this direct your habits as you see fit.

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    That doesn’t really resolve any ambiguity—many people would understand both those to mean 0.214. If you want to be unambiguous, say “two hundred point zero one four” and “(zero) point two one four”, respectively. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jan 04 '14 at 01:53
  • Interesting that a reply to a purely American question (it would be really odd to leave out the and in a year in British English) brings in another purely American usage: I don't believe I have ever heard somebody in England refer to a decimal as so many hundredths or thousandths: those numbers would always be two hundred point oh one four (or zero one four). I've only ever encountered the usage in American novels. (There is the obsolescent unit thou, which means "thousandth of an inch", but that is different). – Colin Fine Jan 04 '14 at 02:21
  • Putting the 'and' in can also have advantages in spoken English at least: two hundred and three foot-high bushes // two hundred three foot high bushes (I've omitted the required hyphen/s from the written form, as the spoken version would not indicate the different senses without unusual prosody). Let this direct your habits as you see fit. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 04 '14 at 12:32