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What does "five hundredth of a second" mean?

To me, "five hundredth" means 1/500 or 0.002. But I've seen people use it to mean 0.05 in sports (e.g. Athlete won the 100m sprint by five hundredth of a second). I think 0.05 should really be "five one-hundredth". Which is correct?

Note we don't have this problem in the 'tenth' magnitude, as "five tenth" and "fiftieth" are distinct.

fezzuu
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    You appear to be confusing one five-hundredth with five hundredths. – Tim Lymington Nov 15 '15 at 21:03
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    It means either .002 OR the ordinal number after 499. As in "one five hundredth of a gram" or "five hundredth episode". – Misneac Nov 15 '15 at 21:16
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    what does twenty five hundredths mean :) 0.25 or 0.08 – Jasen Nov 16 '15 at 10:32
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    "twenty five hundredths" is ambiguous. You need to use a hyphen to clarify in that case. Either "twenty-five hundredths", or "twenty five-hundredths". – Zack T. Nov 16 '15 at 17:15
  • "[five tenth]" would be reduced to "one-half" usually, fyi. "Three-tenths", e.g. does not reduce, but in either case, hyphenation would be appropriate. http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/72614/why-does-one-half-have-no-hyphen-but-two-thirds-does – Cohen_the_Librarian Nov 17 '15 at 13:31
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is predicated on an error. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 21 '15 at 15:10

5 Answers5

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I think what they are actually saying in sports is "he won by 5 hundredths of a second", meaning 5 one-hundredths of a second, not one five-hundredth of a second.

You have to listen carefully sometimes to hear the 's' at the end.

DJ Far
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    And it's worth noting that they don't keep time any finer than hundredths of a second in most events anyway. – shawnt00 Nov 16 '15 at 05:20
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    Another telltale: typically, if we're talking about 0.002 seconds, we'd add a leading article; "he won by a 500th of a second". – MichaelS Nov 16 '15 at 06:36
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    @shawnt00 the olympics are timed to thousandths of a second, but yeah, not most events. – Jasen Nov 16 '15 at 10:35
  • @shawnt00 bobsleigh events are anotable exception – TemplateRex Nov 16 '15 at 17:57
  • But... anyone who actually says "five one-hundredths" should be chastised; the correct form is "five hundredths". (I have no objection to it being used in this answer, as it is providing clarity, not actually part of the number per-se.) – AndyT Nov 17 '15 at 15:47
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"Five hundredth of a second" should be plural, "Five hundredths of a second" (5/100 seconds or 0.05 seconds).

Ordinal numbers: 100th = one hundredth... 200th = two hundredth... 500th = five hundredth.

Fractions: 1/100 = one one-hundredth... 1/200 = one two-hundredth... 1/500 = one five-hundredth.

So 5/100 is "five one-hundredths."

But it can also be "five hundredths," because "a hundred" is often considered a synonym for "one hundred."

And if people don't pronounce the final "s" clearly, then "five hundredths" sounds like "five hundredth."

So there you go.

jkdev
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  • 5/100 is five hundredths, not five one-hundredths; that would be five 1/100 (or possibly 5 1/100, which, in writing, would be ambiguous, since it can also represent five and one hundredth aka 5.01). Similarly, 5/20 is five twentieths, not five one-twentieths, etc. Fractions are not normally read with ‘one’ specified in the denominator, regardless of whether it's 100 or not. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Nov 16 '15 at 23:48
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    @JanusBahsJacquet - The number written in numerals as "100" is normally pronounced fully as "one hundred"; the number written as "20" is very rarely (and incorrectly) pronounced as "one twenty" (although "one score" would be fine). That means that "five one-hundredths" is also acceptable, where "five one-twentieths" would not be. – bye Nov 17 '15 at 09:02
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'To clarify even further, 1/500 is 'one five-hundredth, .05 is 'five one-hundredths', and 'five hundredth' stands for the position of the 500th item that is being counted.

user147725
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The first commenter, Tim, got it right - the OP either misheard "five hundredth of a second", or the speaker of that phrase got it wrong: it is singular "one hundredth of a second" but plural "five hundredths of a second", i.e. 0.05.

A five hundredth (1/500) is singular, and though it is numerically equal to 0.002, that number would be uttered as "two thousandths"; and 0.004 would be uttered as "four thousandths", not "two five hundredths", since 99.99% of people wouldn't, on the spur of the moment (including me), either make, or bother to make, the equivalency, since we commonly talk about tenths and hundredths and thousandths, not a five hundredth.

As others have pointed out, you would typically only talk about a five hundredth if you were talking about an item from among five hundred items; but what if you were to talk about multiples from the five hundred items? As Jasen asked and Zack answered, you have to be careful. To be consistent, "twenty five hundredths" would have to mean, arithmetically, 25 of 0.01, or 0.25; but if we mean 20 of 1/500 then we'd have to write "twenty five-hundredths"; and, to be consistent and clear, perhaps 1/500 should also be written as "a/one five-hundredth".

jimalton
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"Five hundredth" doesn't mean anything; it's not well-formed English. "One five-hundredth" means 0.002 and "five hundredths" means 0.05.

Mike Scott
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