grammar-geek's picture
grammar-geek March 20, 2014 - 9:50am

A website said: "In narrative, only use numerals when you use a.m. and p.m. or when you’re emphasizing the exact minute, and only use a.m. and p.m. when you have to, when you want to emphasize the minute—something such as 9:23 a.m. For the hour, quarter, and half hours, spell them out—it was nine (or it was nine o’clock), it was nine fifteen, it was nine thirty. For your example, it was nine thirty Sunday morning. I’d even say spell out times such as nine twenty and nine forty."

"For dialogue, write out the number. “The train leaves at two p.m.,” he answered.

"Of course, not many people use a.m. and p.m. when they say the time or when they think it, so you’d be safe, most of the time, not mentioning them at all."

**********

Me: There are two sets of rules here for numbers. What's the difference between narrative and dialogue?

L.W. Flouisa's picture
L.W. Flouisa from Tennessee is reading More Murakami March 21, 2014 - 6:20am

I don't really see why it matters, that's just finnicky. No offence. Why not complain about something that's actually important, like a mispelled word.

XyZy's picture
XyZy from New York City is reading Seveneves and Animal Money March 21, 2014 - 10:04pm

Dialogue is when characters talk. Narrative is everything else. This kind of gets into a hazy area when dealing with third-person narratives and inner monologue, but in many ways inner monologue is just dialogue with no recipient, so should follow the same rules.

The reason there are different rules is because of inherent differences between speech and writing. Numerals are symbolic referents to abstract ideas the we have given names to; the word for '1' (which is an abstract symbolic object) is 'one'. We don't speak in numerals; we speak in words, so the convention has been to write out numbers as words when people speak in dialogue, so reflecting that the characters are speaking words (same goes for writing common numbers that we use in everyday language, though we make exceptions for large numbers).

It is, as Sarah has pointed out, rather pedantic in its reasoning, but the convention survives because reading numerals in fiction is always distracting. It's not usually disruptive or necessarily damaging, but any 1 numeral in a string of words stands out. Though that's probably simply because of exposure more than anything. But that's just a guess on my part; I assume if there were more numbers in our reading materials, and we used numerals to represent them more, we'd not find them so out of place in a piece of writing. But then again, I can't think of any reason to inundate our reading materials with numerals so we can become accustomed to seeing them and then levy a single rule across both modes of writing... that seems even more ridiculous.

But also note that your website source qualifies using numerals only when you want to emphasize with exactness... the important word is 'emphasize', because numerals inherently draw attention to themselves.

Thuggish's picture
Thuggish from Vegas is reading Day of the Jackal March 22, 2014 - 6:43am

Funny thing is, if you listen to people talk, they don't typically give out exact times anyway.  Even less do they give out a.m. or p.m.  Maybe when making a schedule, but even then it's usually "we'll see you at four on Tuesday."  Because we all know you're not showing up at four in the morning.  And notices, I just said four in the morning, that's how people phrase it, not four a.m.  

Covewriter's picture
Covewriter from Nashville, Tennessee is reading & Sons March 22, 2014 - 8:52pm

Twelve noon or twelve midnight might be needed in conversation, but you would just say noon or midnight, yes? I can also see when you might need to say nine o'clock eastern, eight central if your characters are in different time zones.