Fractions and Decimals
In spoken English, ordinal numbers are also used to quantify the denominator of a fraction. Thus 'fifth' can mean the element between fourth and sixth, or the fraction created by dividing the unit into five pieces. In this usage, the ordinal numbers can be pluralized: one seventh, two sevenths. The sole exception to this rule is division by two. The ordinal term 'second' can only refer to location in a series; for fractions English speakers use the term 'half' (plural 'halves').
Here are some common fractions (partitive numerals):
| 1/16 | one sixteenth |
| 1/10 or 0.1 | one tenth |
| 1/8 | one eighth |
| 2/10 or 0.2 | two tenths |
| 1/4 | one quarter or (mainly American English) one fourth |
| 3/10 or 0.3 | three tenths |
| 1/3 | one third |
| 3/8 | three eighths |
| 4/10 or 0.4 | four tenths |
| 1/2 | one half |
| 6/10 or 0.6 | six tenths |
| 5/8 | five eighths |
| 2/3 | two thirds |
| 7/10 or 0.7 | seven tenths |
| 3/4 | three quarters or three fourths |
| 8/10 or 0.8 | eight tenths |
| 7/8 | seven eighths |
| 9/10 or 0.9 | nine tenths |
| 15/16 | fifteen sixteenths |
Alternatively, and for greater numbers, one may say for 1/2 "one over two", for 5/8 "five over eight", and so on. This "over" form is also widely used in mathematics.
Numbers with a decimal point may be read as a cardinal number, then "and", then another cardinal number followed by an indication of the significance of the second cardinal number (not common in British English); or as a cardinal number, followed by "point", and then by the digits of the fractional part. The indication of significance takes the form of the denominator of the fraction indicating division by the smallest power of ten larger than the second cardinal. This is modified when the first cardinal is zero, in which case neither the zero nor the "and" is pronounced, but the zero is optional in the "point" form of the fraction.
- For example:
- 0.002 is "two thousandths" (mainly U.S.); or "point zero zero two", "point oh oh two", "nought point zero zero two", etc.
- 3.1416 is "three point one four one six"
- 99.3 is "ninety-nine and three tenths" (mainly U.S.); or "ninety-nine point three".
In English the decimal point was originally printed in the center of the line (0·002), but with the advent of the typewriter it was placed at the bottom of the line, so that a single key could be used as a full stop/period and as a decimal point. In many non-English languages a full-stop/period at the bottom of the line is used as a thousands separator with a comma being used as the decimal point.
- Fractions together with an integer are read as follows:
- 1 1/2 is "one and a half"
- 6 1/4 is "six and a quarter"
- 7 5/8 is "seven and five eighths"
A space is required between the whole number and the fraction; however, if a special fraction character is used like "½", then the space can be done without, e.g.
-
- 9 1/2
- 9½
Read more about this topic: English Numerals