pedants, apply here

[baratron]

How do you pronounce the number 1175?

OK - now, how do you describe a place that is 1175 square feet? Is it "a 1175 square foot place", or "an 1175 square foot place"? The article depends on the pronunciation of 1175, doesn't it?

Fascinating discussion going on over at epi_lj's - not least of all because a lot of the commenters haven't actually realised what the problem is!

Comments

[beaq.livejournal.com]

eleventyseventy five?

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Exactly my thought. :)

[erik]

I would take my pronunciation cue from the sentence, actually.
If I was writing the sentence, it would be "a space 1175 square feet in area."

Left to my own devices, though, it'd be "Eleven-seventy-five" for this context (that is, where I knew it was an ordinal number. If I suspected it was a random part number or something where the next one might just as well be "1F3J" or something, I'd say "One One Seven Five." Also if I was reading it over the phone I'd "spell it out" to avoid misunderstanding).

[kalikanzara.livejournal.com]

I'd also rewrite the sentence to avoid the uncertainty - "Nearly 1200 square feet!" comes to mind.

[johnckirk.livejournal.com]

I think it does depend on the context, but people tend to be inconsistent. For instance, I pronounce all 4 digit years as a pair of two digit numbers, but most people would pronounce 1066 as "ten sixty six" vs 2005 as "two thousand and five". In this context, I'd probably cop out by saying "it's roughly a twelve hundred square foot place".

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

"eleven seventy-five" or perhaps "Thousand hundred and seventy five".

As to the area "About 1200 square feet" or "What is that in real units?"

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

I'd probably say a thousand, one seven five foot place, or a one one seven five place.
For some reason eleven seventy five doesn't come to mind for a measure, although twelve 75 might.

Also 1175 square foot is 3 modifiers before the noun, which is too many for me, so I'd likely say 'the place is one one two five square feet'.