Numerals or Words?

When should you spell numbers and when should you use numerals?  The answer depends on the style guide that you use.

The Chicago Manual of Style calls for numbers between one and one hundred to be spelled:

In nontechnical contexts, the following are spelled out: whole numbers from one through one hundred, round numbers, and any number beginning a sentence.  For other numbers, numerals are used. (9.3)

The MLA Handbook states that in pieces of writing that infrequently use numbers (i.e. the Humanities), numbers that are either one or two words should be spelled and numbers of three or more words should be in numerals:

One, thirty-six, ninety-nine, one hundred, fifteen hundred, two thousand, three million, but 2½, 101, 137, 1,275. (3.5.2)

In more scientifically based papers, MLA requires writers to represent any number followed by a technical unit of measurement as a numeral: “16 amperes, 5 millimeters” (3.5.2).

The general rule for APA is to use words for numbers zero to ten, but numerals for numbers ten or greater: 11, 200, 5000 (4.30).

Works Cited

The Chicago Manual of Style. 15^th ed. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2003.

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 7^th ed.  New York: MLA, 2009.

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. 6^th ed.  Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2009.

Interjections

Interjections are small words or phrases that we use to convey emotion (e.g. "wow," "hey," "oh my," etc.).  We usually punctuate them with a comma or an exclamation point:

Hey, get off of my foot.
Ouch, that hurt.
Crosby sure can skate, eh?
Struth! I can't believe Liam married Bianca.

As you will note from the previous examples, they can be quite regional. (Note: "struth" is often used like an interjection but is a noun, "god's truth.")

There are two rather unique aspects of interjections:

First, when they are punctuated with with an exclamation point (an intonation mark often used for complete sentences), they can stand by themselves.  That is, they do not need a verb.

Second, they are not grammatically related to other parts of a sentence.  They do not need to agree in number, time, or person.

Resources

The University of Ottawa, The University of Calgary, and Capital College all have useful explanations and examples of interjections.

Articles

Articles are used to introduce nouns.  There are three articles:

1) indefinite articles ("a" and "an").  We use these when:
a) the noun is not specific or we are mentioning the noun for the first time:

- e.g. "A woman is walking down the street." (I do not know who she is, and I am mentioning her for the first time)
- e.g. "I put an apple on the table." (It could be any apple, and I am mentioning this specific apple for the first time.)

b) the non-specific noun is singular and countable:

- e.g. "A giraffe, an emu, and a horse are in my front yard." (We can easily count each one of these animals, and I am mentioning for the first time that they are in my yard.)

2) definite article ("the"). We use these when:
a) the noun is specific:

- e.g. "The house next to my house is red." (We know specifically the house about which we are talking.)

b) we have previously mentioned the noun:

- e.g. "The giraffe, the emu, and the horse are still in my front yard." (I mentioned the giraffe, the emu, and the horse in example 1b; you have already heard about them.)

3) zero articles (i.e. we do not use "a," "an," or "the" and we make non-count nouns plural). We use these when:

a) we are speaking of a type of noun in general:

- e.g. I like apples. 

b) the noun is non-count and non-specific:

- e.g. Coffee stimulates the nervous system.

Resources

University of Victoria and The University of Texas at Austin have good, simple explanation of articles.  Purdue OWL has a good sheet on how to use articles.