I recently got a document from a client asking me to review and comment. Happens all the time. My pleasure to be of service. But, this one had the phrase ‘… schedule two (2) planning meetings … ‘. I’m not making this up.
It’s 2024 and people still think they need to tell readers that the word ‘two’ means 2. Most workplace readers know that ‘two’ means 2 – that practice can be insulting or annoying. Or result in a sarcastic ‘Really?’
What to do? … Simple. With numerical references zero – nine, write out the words, as in ‘three weeks’ or ‘eight revisions’. For references 10 or greater, use numbers, as in ’20 team members’ or ’11 percent’. But there’s never a good reason to do it two (2) times. Make sense?