Why Do Artists Go for the Ear?

It all happens so fast. If you remember, we ended last week with everything suspended: Criss on the side of the Chrysler Building, David upside down, handcuffed and straitjacketed, in a shark-infested tank. But the crowd has now turned back to me, breathlessly wide-eyed and slack-jawed, to hear the rest of my story on how to write numbers.

Criss jumps down and slaps a spectator’s head under a guillotine; David nails his own hand to a door with an icepick, both desperate to wrest back the crowd’s attention, but to no avail (maybe a little avail, but not much), because I just keep pouring it on.

YOU MUST:

Use words for numbers at the beginning of a sentence, including a date: Nineteen sixty-eightwas the height of student migration to the beaches of Ft. Lauderdale during Spring Break. Eleven hundred twenty-nine students that year were arrested and jailed during the riots.

Hyphenate numbers from twenty-one through ninety-nine, but only those numbers: one hundred eighty-three.

Place a comma after the year only if the day appears after the month: We will wait till October 14, 2015, to begin. But: We will wait till 14 October 2015 to begin.

Use the numeral with the word percent unless in a technical piece; then use %: But 7 percent voted no. Mix a 7% solution with . . . .

Spell the number if you spell the currency – twenty-five dollars.

Write the numeral if you use the symbol – £475.

YOU MUST NOT:

Add the numeral in parentheses after you have written it in words: seven thousand nine hundred fifty-two(7,952).

Use ordinal numbers in dates unless “of” appears between the number and the month: 8 May, or May 8, or the 8th of May; but not May 8th, or 8th May.

Place an apostrophe before the “s” in a plural year or century: The 1960's, or the 1800's.

Capitalize a century: the Twentieth Century, or the 20th century.

YOU MAY:

Replace the century with an apostrophe – the Class of ’64.

Wait, what is happening? That last one apparently has pushed the crowd to the edge of hysteria! Excuse me, I have a crisis unfolding! David, drop the hacksaw! Leave your ear alone! I'm finished! You may have your audience back!