Numbers
- 10,000: Numbers larger than ten thousand. In Chinese, 10 thousand is read as one myriad (萬), 100 thousand as 10 myriad, one million as 100 myriad. Even so, most people will not use the English word "myriad" so this type of English is hardly ever seen.
- Fractions: "three over four" (or three fourth) may wrongly be taken as "four over three". In Chinese, the denominator is read before the numerator. For example, three-fourths in Chinese is "四分之三", literally "out of four portions, three".
- Discounts: the Chinese way of saying 10% off is "90% of the original price". This is often written as 9折 (or 九折) which is understood to mean "discounted to 9/10 of the original price". When two digits are given the divisor is understood to be 100, e.g. 75折 (or 七五折) means 25% off.
Read more about this topic: Hong Kong English
Famous quotes containing the word numbers:
“All experience teaches that, whenever there is a great national establishment, employing large numbers of officials, the public must be reconciled to support many incompetent men; for such is the favoritism and nepotism always prevailing in the purlieus of these establishments, that some incompetent persons are always admitted, to the exclusion of many of the worthy.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Individually, museums are fine institutions, dedicated to the high values of preservation, education and truth; collectively, their growth in numbers points to the imaginative death of this country.”
—Robert Hewison (b. 1943)
“All ye poets of the age,
All ye witlings of the stage,
Learn your jingles to reform,
Crop your numbers to conform.
Let your little verses flow
Gently, sweetly, row by row;
Let the verse the subject fit,
Little subject, little wit.
Namby-Pamby is your guide,
Albion’s joy, Hibernia’s pride.”
—Henry Carey (1693?–1743)