‘Stranger things have happened’ is a saying used to express our stoic approach to a given unusual event, indicating that although said event is somewhat extraordinary, we know of things or we believe that things even weirder are possible. This saying came to my mind when one of my Students recommended ‘Stranger Things’ to me.And I thought to myself: why bother watching it then? It seemed to me like a marketing suicide to give a series a title which might discourage its perspective viewers. It’s like saying: Yeah, our series is weird but there are plenty weirder ones out there, so – you know – you can watch it, but don’texpect too much…’ So that’s what the title told me. But after seeing the first episode… I remembered another good saying: Don’t judge a book by its cover’. In this case, ‘Don’t judge a series by its title’! Boy, oh boy, was I hooked!
The ambience, the characters, the mystery, the deceptively innocent and predictable plot, the chill that it gave me… It was all fantastically thought-through. So I watched and I watched, and I wanted more. Surely, you did the same.
At some point, however, I realised that the story that gripped me most was the slowly unravelling story of the little bold girl running around the woods in her nightie. Perhaps it was simply because she strangely (pun unintended) reminded me of my young self… I spent my adolescence and teenage years wearing a very short hairdo (I never dared to go as far as Eleven, though), hanging out with boys, and wanting to have some special powers. Of course, I was fortunate enough to be spared the atrocities she experienced from her family, so I felt sorry for her, feeling some kind of connection at the same time.
I loved ‘Stranger Things’ and everything about it! I wanted MORE! But, as it so often happens in the real world, there is a long wait between seasons. And so – to entertain myself during this wait – I watched ‘Dark’. I don’t know about you, guys who’ve seen it, but for me it was probably even better than ‘Stranger Things’. Maybe because it was German and – of course – in German, which is my other fav language (mind you, I didn’t call it ‘my second fav language’ as English and German are joined winners of my affection). Surely, one notices some striking similarities between the two series. And, at the beginning, one might wonder how cheeky the creators of ‘Dark’ were to have ripped off ‘Stranger Things’ so shamelessly. But then you suddenly get sucked into the life of Winden and the drama that poisons its citizens, as you find yourself slowly forgetting about the story that was first…
But before we forget about the series completely ,let us take a look at a topic which was naturally inspired by my girl – Eleven… Numbers in their might and glory.
Don’t worry – I’m not going to teach you how to count from 1 to 110,989,833,298 or how to calculate all Fibonacci Primes… how the hell should I know?! I am, however, going to present different applications of numbers and how they are, or should be, written and said.
First of all (or – as you may have already encountered the modern version –firstable), there are cardinal numbers – they are the ones that we use for counting things, for example:
1: one
34: thirty-four
87: eighty-seven, and the whole gang.
Apart from learning the numbers and their correct pronunciation – be careful with all the guys with 3 and 4 in their name – you shouldn’t forget about and between hundreds and tens, if your loyalties lie with British English:
367: three hundred and sixty seven
52,841: fifty-two thousand eight hundred and forty-one.
Numbers consist of digits: 0 to 9. By the way, your fingers are also colloquially called digits (look for some examples in gangster films – mafia notoriously deprives their debtors of their precious digits).
Then, there are ordinal numbers; as the name suggests, they denote the order of things. Just to revise:
| 1st: first 2nd: second 3rd: third 4th: fourth 5th: fifth 6th: sixth 7th: seventh 8th: eighth 9th: ninth… | 11th: eleventh 12th: twelfth 13th: thirteenth… 20th: twentieth 21st: twenty-fist 32nd: thirty-second 43rd: forty-third 55th: fifty-fifth 101: one hundred and first… |
You get the pattern!
Notice we only make the last digit cardinal. Not – like in some languages – all of them; that’s why 43rd is NOT fortieth-third.
We use ordinal numbers for dates, which is logical as we talk about the order of days in a given month. And so:
| WE WRITE | WE SAY |
| 4th May | the fourth of May or May the fourth |
| 12th November | the twelfth of November or November the twelfth |
| 28th September | the twenty-eighth of September or September the twenty-eighth |
Remember about the before the ordinal number!
Dates often come with years. Simple stuff: divide them into two parts…
1246 :twelve forty-six
1758: seventeen fifty-eight
1982: nineteen eighty-two
There are also dates like these:
1303: thirteen oh three
1608: sixteen oh eight
1905: nineteen oh five
And:
1300: thirteen hundred
1600: sixteen hundred
1900: nineteen hundred
Well, I was born in the previous millenium, but I have – I think, quite successfully – adapted to life in the new one – after 2000: (the year) two thousand. And sure as Barb was killed by the Demogorgon, new millenium – new rules…of saying years at least.
2001: two thousand and one
2002: two thousand and two …
2010: two thousand (and) ten (you can also hear: twenty ten)
2016: twenty sixteen or two thousand sixteen
2018: twenty eighteen or two thousand eighteen
2020 :twenty twenty or two thousand twenty
… we are yet to see which way will become dominant in the common usage after 2020. It is us – the people – who determine these trends ,so be on the lookout and do your bit.
When it comes to full dates, you have to remember that there are different ways of writing them:
15th June 2016:
15/06/2016 in British English (in fact, in most languages and most parts of the world) or
06/15/2016 in American English.
The situation is clear when it’s the 13th day or later, since there are only 12 months. There should be little confusion when we see 07/14/2018 for the 14th of July 2018. Things can get mighty complicated, though, when it’s January 2019 and you get a deadline for your project which looks like this: 02/11/2019. Should you be rolling up your sleeves, gathering your chi, and getting down to business, or can you put your feet up and chill, waiting patiently for November? I always freak out when I see dates written like this – my brain experiences some kind of ‘Syntax Error’ and can’t process such data. So to avoid any confusion I advise you to use names of the months: 27 October / Oct 2017; or October 27,2017 (remember to use a coma between the day and year in this configuration). This is what I tell my students when they are at a loss exchanging e-mails with their business partners abroad.
Comas are also used in English numbers to seperate thousands: 1,206;45,938; or we can think bigger: 89,674,590,310,286. Anyone out there who can say this number? When you want to show decimals, use a point: 0.3168 (said: point three one six eight); 78.056 (said: seventy-eight point zero five six); or 1.0000004 (a little more than 1).
That’s all from me this time. Drop me a line, if you have some queries concerning numbers.
By the way, did you recognise some of the dates that appeared in this post? What are your significant geeky dates? Let me know in the comments!