12/10   Why do people write numbers in digits with parentheses after writing
        them in English?  For example: "I have two (2) apples."
        \_ maybe it makes it easier for someone who is skimming a document
           to pick out the numbers from the text--just a guess.  It seems like
           i've mostly seen this in government documents, where the signal
           to noise ratio tends to be low.
        \_ Redundancy is good?  Help search engines?
        \_ People do that?!
        \_ I do it to reduce the chance the reader won't mess up my order.
           \_ Same here.  As in, "The Titanic needs forty (40) lifeboats."
        \_ Maybe the redundancy helps to prevent ambiguity.