Hi,
Numbers play an important role in our lives. In some ways we’re all recorded somewhere on a computer with a number attached to our names. Of course sometimes you can be lucky even when you get the number wrong. Let me tell you a story about that and at the same time show you how often these digits crop up in the language.
The language of numbers - Stories | english.best?
Alan
Yes, numbers can everytime make problem presents.You have to attend very much for them and for your keys as well :P.
I really like this expressions :
at the eleventh hour, got his number
and number one - heh, it increases your self-confidence when you think you are “number one”.
I don’t have a problem to remember number or digits . I can remember telephone number or birthday in a few second . But I able to forget everything is not numeric . Sometimes, I wonder I maybe the most forget people in the world . What is the important thing you will bring when get out home ? I have 4 , money , glasses, key’s room and telephone . Average, I will forget one of four once time in a month . I used to forget key’s room at the office . I knew that while the clock pass to 11 am . And office was closed . 3 weeks ago I took a bus for work . Wow surprise me , I have only 2 baht but I need 12 baht for bus . Don’t worry about me . I know my weak point then I have some reserve plan . I have 2 glasses , one at the office another one at home . However , when I took the glasses from office I often to bring it back . Last week, I went to Korea . My friends send me email to the list I will buy for her . Absolutely , I have 3 reserved plans, 1st plan print the list to paper and put it into the travel bag . 2nd plan forward the mail to my personal mail . I able to open the mail via my PDA phone . The last plan finding internet cafe . In real situation , I forgot the list it still in travel bag . Then 2nd plan but at Korea is very cold , temperature -18c . My phone was running out battery . The last plane , I couldn’t find internet cafe around shopping mall . I never gone there before . Finally , I have a big smile and ask the shop beside store for help .
Remembering telephone number or birthday’s friends is very easy though you can’t remember digits , because there are tool to help you record or recognize as web alert , contract book . For me it still problem. Web alert will send you 15 , 7 and 1 days before birthday. But when birthday is coming the day I didn’t check email . The real problem is not remember . But I often to forget . Maybe , it will make me more good feeling . I have 29 days I don’t forget anything .
I love your essays, Allen though some more than others. One of my favorites is this one on numbers. When you really get into numbers, like higher math, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calcusul, and further nightmares I don’t even want to think about, like converting Celsius to Fahrenheit and oh yes, whatever happened to Centigrade? Is it the same as Celsius?
I’m not good with the higher math that’s so esoteric that it doesn’t apply to daily situations. e.g. math analysus.
But I’m good with doing math operations in my head and I can generally do it faster than those writing it out on paper or, God help them, having to graph quadratic equasions. One of the students I’m now tutoring in algebra two (or is it 2? or sometimes people misspell it as “to” or “too” which is really a subject for another essay, they’re called homophones. Care to do one or two on such topics, Allen? (smile) I still sometimes mix up homophones with homonyms and, oh, those analogies they always put on standardized tests like the SAT GRE etc.
Another thing related to numbers that I’ve thought about is the descriptive words for ordinal numbers. Cardinal numbers e.g. arabic numerals 1 2 3 etc. Such things transcend languages. While “cinco” may not be understood, 5 is, especially if proceeded by a dollar sign or other currency symbol.
In school, we had to learn Roman Numerals. I still see them popping up, often in copyright or publications that are older, or as page numbers that are considered prefatory (introductory) material about a book. In school, we had to be able to manipulate such numerals the way we did with Arabic whole numbers. It was really rather fun. But I haven’t done math operations with roman numerals for a while and would probably be slower at it since I’m out of practice.
I remember a few years ago when a controversy came up about how one would write ordinal numbers. Which is correct? I got the FIRST prize in the lottery? ( I wish; but then I never buy tickets so the chances are zero, or nil, or virtually improbable (unless someone gave me a lottery ticket) that I’d win. But if I won first (1st) or second (2nd) which is correct? I was always taught that we should write out the word in its complete spelling. But this is not the 1st time I’ve seen the number followed by the last two letters of the word (2nd rather than “second”.
As for remembering numbers, I have several ways of keeping a phone number in my head. One way is to imagine in your mind when you first hear the number, visualize how it looks, imprint it on your mind. A musician friend and I often assign notes to numbers and sing the numbers to each other using either numbers or solfege (do re mi) or even note letter names. It’s kind of funny when she leaves a phone message on my voice mail. If she’s giving me a new phone number, for a mutual friend or for herself when she moved, she always leave the message tunefully singing the numbers. If it’s greater than an octave spread, she’ll use a number and note combination like "E a tenth (above middle C) or terms which are somewhat familiar to musicians such as “two sharp seven”.
But often we just use numbers and maybe octave numbers, middle C being fourth octave on the piano. Of course, there’s a separate Braille code for math, one for music, one for chemistry and other sciences as well as literary Braille. There are 63 possible combinations of the six dots in a cell and when you’re talking about two-cell words (the cell is a unit of six dots arranged like a rectangle with a line of dots and another line that are parellel. So there are three dots on the left side, dots one, two and three, and directly to the right of these are dots 4 5 and 6. Now, you can make several hundred combinations at least from this basic unit, using multiple cells and all that.
The way I often memorize numbers is to imagine that I am reading them in a line of Braille. I guess that’s my equivalent of visualizing numbers as pictures, shapes and so on. I can do that with some letters and numbers if they are huge raised ones like the signs for room numbers and such. I know that there is both a Braile label and a giant raised print label (well, they’re actually metal numbers) for the classrooms in the school where I teach, showing whether a loo is for men or women (and their’s probably a sign for unisex as well though I don’t use it. It would be spelled out in the six Braille letters unisex but in the Braille code.
Now, for the ultimate application of the use of digits, we “spoke” in Braille when I was at a school for the blind. I do it to this day. Braille is a code, not a separate language like the various sign languages are. Some languages have different uses for different combinations of dots to represent things in their language. But some of us got awfully proficient at inventing codes, many of which were based on number, number-letter combinations, and sometimes we might use the words for numbers but if we were “talking in Braille” we just used the dot combination numbers like the letter p in Braille is numbers 123, the dots on the left side of a cell, and the letter y is dots 1 3 4 5 6. So it has all the dots in the cell except dot 2. Some of us, mostly me and my best friend, would switch in mainstream between letters, numbers, words and symbols and we even developed our own syntax, distinctive words and grammar and all that. We often made up our own combinations of dots and sometimes letters and numbers to make the codes harder for teachers, houseparents and other staff to decipher.
I think we started doing all this at such a young age, when children learn things like languages more easily, and sometimes we were bound by desperation because we were having our own little secrets that we didn’t want the teachers to know. Mostly it was harmless and often was nothing the teachers or other staff had the need to know. But it drove them crazy (nuts, berserk, over the top, out of control, frustrated, angry and vocabulary stretching) which of course made it all the more fun.
Now, when we begin to study math we can run into all kinds of strange designations for numbers that would undoubtedly send many people scurrying to their dictionaries or thesaurusses.
First, there’s “set theory”. That’s easy to teach to kids with “manipulatives.” But then it gets abstract and you find the sets of “real numbers”, “natural numbers”, “integers”, “rational numbers”, negative and positive numbers, whole numbers, and on and on until the numbers blend into a verbal blur and your whole body aches to stop the little number rascals from taking over your mind! (Or, is it your brain?)
I love words and numbers. I love order, outlines, definitions, word play, analogies, synonyms (why you go to a thesaurus) antonyms (opposites, the word being derived, I believe, from “ant(i” (anti, against, (and all kinds of descriptive (adjective) words (well, actually, their nouns, but their prefixes and suffixes are a giveaway. They’re words that have “nym” in their somewhere. Synonyms are similar, homonyms and homophones, (anything with the word “phone” in it is usually derived from a word meaning “sound” in a way that communicates s in “telephone” radiophone, and other words like phonograph (literally, I think, “sound picture” because they were early devices that recorded or played phonograph records, LPs.
Telecommunications embraces all kinds of interaction usually on the phone, including texting, and through computers, PDAS, IPhones and other such wonders.From the idea of the phonograph and the LP long-playing “record” though the term “record” could be a noun (like a student’s record of grades) or a verb like "May I record this lecture on my digital recorder?
Well, much as I love words and numbers and languages and codes and such, even I have a limit! (smile) So I’m going to sign off (close the communication) and do some relaxing Braille reading, take the dog for a brief (it’s below freezing and that’s Fahrenheit, below 32 and Celcius below zero. Oh, no, not zero! That little guy has all sorts of rules to which he is bound, some good, some bad and some just, well, let’s just say that, unlike the children’s saying, “Zero is NOT my hero”. Hmm. I wonder how many letters and numbers, how many words, terms, word images, math terms I’ve managed to fill this missive?
Since I don’t know how to do such a measurement with my computer and I’m too lazy to listen and count, I’ll leave you with that thought. Numbers can sometimes seem like the enemy, (I’ve even heard of a book called the “Devil’s Arithmetic”, and sometimes they’re just pesky, and, if the bank or grocery clerk overcharges me and I catch them, then I am indebted to numbers. Hmm. Not sure if I like that. It all comes back to numbers, doesn’t it? I much prefer words.
Laura Bright people like teachers . The letter y is dots 13
Dear allen,it wz quite an educative story on numbers.thanks
Dear Alan,
It is a really good essay. What is more i found it easy to understand the idiom and expressions with the numbers, as you had given the explanation just following the phrase.
I am neither good nor bad at remembering numbers, though my job has to do with lots of numbers and calculations , contacts, etc. But thanks to technology we can save some of the contacts and easily use when we need them. It often happens to me to make an inverse of the numbers and thus being in trouble and having to apologize people whom i have wrongly call.
I agree they play an important role in our lives.
Hello Alan,
I loved your lesson “The Language of Number”. It was so helpful to me to remember the idioms and expressions about number. Before I have heard and read some of those idioms, but I did not understand the meanings of them. You have made a great work when you created a story, which used the idioms and expressions. By this way, the readers could easily to remember them.
I have just found that your stories are interesting and so helpful to me. Thank you!
Please tell me which is right: the readers could easily to remember them or the readers could remember them easily? Thanks.
Hi Hoado,
There are two possibilities here: The readers could easily remember them or The readers could remember them easily. There is no preposition ‘to’ after can/could.
Alan
Hello Alan,
On the way learning English, I’ve made lots of mistakes for the umpteenth time. However, I think making mistake when you are learning a language is normal. From my experience, I put two and two together and realized that I have learned a lot from my mistakes. If you are afraid of making mistakes you will never know what you do not know, your weekness. It is ten to one that every leaner makes mistakes when he or she learns something. The most important thing is we should experience that to make you better next time.
One of my bad habit is I sometimes kill two birds with one stone. For example, I sometimes chat and learn English at the same time. This makes me cannot concentrate on the main work. I have been trying to give up this bad habit so I can focus my attention on English. A friend has told me some strategies in order to learn a foreign language, and I am going to tell you here because this can help the learners like me.
About the numbers, I do not have a good head for figures, remembering other people’s telephone numbers. Because of this sometimes I am at sixes and sevens, like the character in your lesson. Nevertheless, I have read Nukookka’s message. Her idea about “3 reserved plans” sounds good to me.
Numbers are not only numbers. Sometimes some numbers have the meanings as symbols. However, this is the other topic of number.
Well, I have just finished this message in two shakes. There might be some mistakes. I hope you will help me to correct them.
Alan, thanks a million!
I really like the way you put numbers in your essay.It’s fantastic!
Please correct my mistakes in my message. Thank you.
Hello Alan and all,
Please give your comments.
I need someone tell me my mistakes in my message, so that I can improve my English and my writing skill. Thank you.
Hi Hoado,
My suggestions are in capital letters:
Well done,
Alan
Alan, thanks a million!
I used to have a good head for figures but not any more.I am 59 years old now…
I know seven idioms with numbers out of twenty five which you listed in your essay…which is a bad score isn’t it?
best regars,
rosette.
I forgot to add: thanks a million, ALAN.
I forgot the “d” at regards! sorry.
Hello Rosette,
What a coincide! I have used only seven idioms with number out of twenty five which Alan listed in his essay. I wish I could use more idioms with numbers in my writing. However, it is difficult to use all 25 idioms in an essay as Alan did.
It is so wonderful the way you are helping us.
Thank you very much dear Alan.
Dear Allan,
Many thanks for bringing us this quite interesting essay about the “Language of Numbers”.
Personally, it was very useful and priceless to me.
My best regards,
Cesar Lopez Petrovich.