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. |