MINI FOLLOW-UP--
Math 101*
A numerical controversy
The great 101 controversy was launched in the July
2001 issue of mini-AIR. A celebrated mathematics professor of
our acquaintance asked for help with the following dilemma:
A woman called the math department earlier this year. Her son is in first grade.
The first grade teacher said her son was counting wrong. How is 101 pronounced -- "one hundred one" or "one hundred and one"?
The teacher told the woman to call any mathematician to find out the proper way to say it. I don't know the answer
Below are some of the more and less salient answers sent in by mini-AIR readers.
DEPENDENCY
Depends on how you are using it. If you have 101 buttons, it's one hundred and one buttons. But, if you have 101 dollars, it's one hundred one dollars.
--Melissa R. Hawkins
THE NEW ZEALAND / DE SOTO SOLUTION
According to the revered mathematician Ms De Soto, who taught me 7th grade
mathematics [in New Zealand], the correct answer is 'one hundred one'. A
true mathematician, according to the De Soto School of Pronunciation, never
inserts an 'and' into a number. Using an 'and' is a serious faux pas, punishable
by Ms. De Soto rolling her eyes, emitting a loud sigh of exasperation, and
refusing to comprehend the number until it is pronounced without the 'and'.
--Sally Jo Cunningham
OLD FOLKS' VIEW
My preference is for "one hundred and one" but I can't say I
have a divine mandate for that. Once that's settled, let's work out if he's
counting
"wrong" or counting "wrongly."
--Ian Davis
OLD FOLKS' VIEW
When I went to school, some eons ago in Massachusetts, we were taught **not**
to put "and" after the word "hundred." Correct wording
would be "one hundred one." Most of the world, apparently, were
**not** taught this. In any event, I think a first grader is much too young
to be harassed over this sort of thing.
--Shira Paskin
NO BUTS ABOUT AND
I was always taught that "and" functions as a period in numbers.
Thus "one hundred one dollars" is $101.00 but "one hundred
and one dollars" is improper.
--Marcia Thornton
BASEMENT / DEBASEMENT
I usually pronounce "101" either as "one oh one" since
I teach a course called Biometry 101, or as "five", since I have
a computer science degree and occasionally think in base 2. By the way,
by thinking in base N, you can get a countably infinite number of equally
lame jokes.
--David Hiebeler
THE DUTCH WAY
Here's the Dutch way: 101 = "honderd een" = "hundred one".
It's one one shorter too.
--Louw Feenstra
THE AUSTRIAN SOLUTION
I was taught by my adored math teacher (albeit in the middle of the last
century) that the "and" is used to indicate a decimal point. Thus
one hundred and one is the transcription of 100.1. German uses "and"
-- "und" -- differently, but in this case it would be the same:
"einhunderdeins", whereas 25 is "fuenf und zwanzig"
without making it "5.20". Oddly enough, some English-speaking
folks in the US and elsewhere do say "twenty and five".
--Alison Brown
ANTI-NON-EXPLANATION
"One hundred one" is the proper pronunciation, but not the most
common. The "and" should be used only to distinguish dollars and
cents. Telling a first grader that they are "counting wrong" is
not only counterproductive, but it's extreme and an inappropriate way to
each young minds. One should explain the difference between the two, why
one is proper and the other is not.
--Debbyann Van Ness
HEAD CASE
"One hundred one" is the correct way. At least that's what my
teachers beat into my head.
--David B. Horvath
THE ENGINEERED SOLUTION
Being an engineer, I would opt for efficiency and drop the superfluous "and".
In fact, if pure syllabic efficiency is your objective then "one oh
one" is actually the best option although I know mathematicians hate
it when one puts letters in one's numbers.
--Jim Spahr
THE AMBIVALENCE OF TEACHERS
Well, the English teachers come down firmly on both sides of the fence.
My authority on this is the web site <http://studio.tellme.com/grammarref/GrammarReference9.html>
They say that "The number 101 is pronounced differently depending on
the context: HWY 101 is pronounced 'one oh one'$101 is pronounced 'one hundred
one'or 'one hundred and one.' So there. That settles it!
--C.W.P. Finn
ALPHA TO OMEGA
The correct way to say 101 is "one hundred one." You only use
"and" to describe numbers that have a decimal point, such as 35.6
("thirty-five AND six tenths"), or for dollars and cents, such
as $24.43 ("twenty-four dollars AND forty-three cents"), or numbers
that have fractions attached, such as 10 1/2 ("ten AND one-half,"
or more commonly, "ten AND a half"). The longer numbers also don't
have "and" within their phonetic language descriptions. For example,
1,789,296 is spoken as "one million, seven hundred eighty nine thousand,
two hundred ninety-six."
--Paulette Caswell
THE AUSTRALIAN SOLUTION
When my son Jade schooled in Montana it was one hundred one, but here [Australia]
it is one hundred and one.
-- Fiona Davies-McConchie
THE AUSTRALIAN-FRENCH SOLUTION
British and Australian English always includes the 'and', though I have
heard American English without it; regional differences will occur, and
the precepts of descriptive linguistics suggest that if native speakers
use a form, then it is, by definiton, correct. Of course, in a language
like French (so strictly prescribed by the Academie Francaise as well as
the necessities of its grammar), the question would never arise - 101 is
always 'cent et un' (one hundred and one). I hope this helps to further
cloud the issue,
--Nicholas Bolonkin
EVOLUTION RULES
When I was in grade school we learned to pronounce the number 101, "one
hundred one." (That rule hadn't prevented Abrahams Lincoln from starting
his famous speech "Four score *and* seven years ago.") By the
time I got to college, all sorts of classes had 3 digit numbers after them.
Many of them ended in 101, but here it was pronounced "one oh one."
This is even worse, since "oh" is a letter of the alphabet. We
should have been saying things like, "I fell asleep again in Philosophy
one-zero-one," but that just doesn't have the flow. Realistically language
evolves, and I believe that in only 30 years English has evolved to the
point where few ever even knew there was a right way or a wrong way to pronounce
101.
--Michael J Fink
NOTHING NEW
In the "New Math" thing that swept the Unites States as a fad
in the 1970s, one used to distinguish between "negative one" and
"minus one" in a way that now only computer scientists use. It
never caught on. The negative one was supposed to be written with a little
negation sign raised in front of the number to indicate that it was part
of the numeral.
--Gene Chase
KIWI SURVEY HIGHLIGHTS
I undertook a survey among students and staff in my department. Here are
some of the more colorful answers.
---Dr. Matthias Ehrgott, Dept. of Engineering Science, The University of
Auckland, New Zealand
I understand that "one hundred one" is the American convention for saying 101. In other English-speaking countries the convention is usually "one hundred and one." [Adrian Croucher]
Is this not just a matter of grammar (in this case English grammar) rather than Mathematics? Ease of pronunciation is probably involved as well. [Don Nield]
Most of the year 3 engineering students think that it's one hundred and one. [Year 3 Students]
Thank you for the opportunity you provided us to, at an early age, affect the root of mathematics. I would like to vote "one hundred one" and if you don't mind recording Mark's vote, he goes for the opposite "one hundred and one". [Golbon Zakeri / Mark Wilson]
In my opinion, it really doesn't matter. However, "one hundred and one" would sounds more comfortable. [Wai]
ANARCHIST
I say both are correct; the situation is within the definition of what Computer
Scientists call a "don't care."
--David Nicol
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