0.5 mile or miles?

jotham · Post by **jotham** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 3:41 am

I have an editing issue that needs clarification. I and my American colleague have agreed to write "0.5 miles," but other people on our staff have dug up evidence of using the singular: 0.5 mile. I researched it and find conflict.
On the grammarian side, Bryan Garner and the Chicago Manual Style, which I mostly follow, are silent — but Dr. Darling's website (http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/numbers.htm) and Words into Type (1973) recommend the singular. When I looked at the online examples of the finely edited National Review and New York Times, they seem to prefer the plural (but perhaps the online materials aren't subject to fine editing as the actual magazine). Does anyone know the positions of prominent grammarians today? — especially if they prefer the plural, as I do.
On the linguistic side, I guess the plural is preferred since everyone says it that way. Am I wrong about that, or is there an American-British difference?

Buddhaheart · Post by **Buddhaheart** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 5:13 am

Half a MILE = 0.5 *MILES? I prefer the singular. 1.5 MILES, yes. Or is 0.5 actually 5.0 in Europe? Then of course 0.5 (= 5.0 NAm) MILES!

jotham · Post by **jotham** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 5:21 am

Buddhaheart wrote:Half a MILE = 0.5 *MILES? I prefer the singular. 1.5 MILES, yes. Or is 0.5 actually 5.0 in Europe? Then of course 0.5 (= 5.0 NAm) MILES!

Really? So you would say that I went 0.5 mile (or kilometer) down the road? I agree it is half a mile.
I'm not sure I understand the difference between European 5.0 and North American 0.5.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 6:00 am

We normally say point five or oh point five (0.5) of a mile if we speak the decimal form.

jotham · Post by **jotham** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 6:14 am

metal56 wrote:We normally say point five or oh point five (0.5) of a mile if we speak the decimal form.

This is new to me. It seems to be British. So does it sound strange to you to say zero point five miles, or mile?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 6:48 am

jotham wrote:
metal56 wrote:We normally say point five or oh point five (0.5) of a mile if we speak the decimal form.
This is new to me. It seems to be British. So does it sound strange to you to say zero point five miles, or mile?

It doesn't sound strange, it just sounds American.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 9:05 am

I would always say 0.5 miles.

Google gives 1,300,000 for the plural and 835,000 for the singular. The difference does not seem to be British/American.

There are plenty of 'logicians' who forget that singular means one, not none. Thus there is no reason to follow 'none of them' with a singular verb. Thus we are only obliged to say 'mile' after one, not after one point two or zero point five.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 10:22 am

To me, 0.5 mile just looks and sounds awful. I don't know if that's because I'm a Brit or not.

sbourque · Post by **sbourque** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 3:41 pm

Americans would either say "five tenths of a mile" (more commonly: half a mile) or zero point five miles, if you're an engineer type.

Lorikeet · Post by **Lorikeet** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 3:44 pm

sbourque wrote:Americans would either say "five tenths of a mile" (more commonly: half a mile) or zero point five miles, if you're an engineer type.

I'm not an engineer type, but I'd say point five miles if I read it; half a mile if I walked it. Point five mile sounds bad to me too.

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 6:25 pm

0.5 miles. No doubt in my mind.

I'd guess that a lot of SJ's 835,000 hits are either NNS or adjectival, like:

"a 0.5 mile walk"

That link of Jotham's, above, says:

"Place a hyphen after a unit of measure when the unit modifies a noun: 10-foot pole, 6-inch rule, 3-year-old horse. The unit of measure in such expressions is, for some reason, always singular"

Doesn't the writer know why? If not, I'm underwhelmed and disinclined to take much notice of all his/her strictures.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 10:17 pm

I'd guess that a lot of SJ's 835,000 hits are either NNS or adjectival, like:

"a 0.5 mile walk"

Certainly wrong as far as the first two pages of hits go.

Yahoo gives the same proportions but only about half as many total hits.

The proportion is the same for 0.5 minute(s) but there is near equality for 0.5 hour(s).

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 4:32 am

You're right. It makes me wonder what those thousands of people who write "0.5 mile" would say here:

"The bus stop is point five ____ away"

"mile" or "miles" ?

Googling can be a humbling experience. We swim in very small circles.

jotham · Post by **jotham** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 5:27 am

Thanks, this is all good to see confirmation. I'll show it to staff. Does anyone happen to know what the New York Times style guide says or any British guides?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 7:11 am

Does anyone happen to know what the New York Times style guide says or any British guides?

Aren't you happy with the ordinary NES guide?

So how would we speak this?

"From a point 0.9 mile upstream of Walker. Creek to South Fork Catawba River."

"From a point point nine mile upstream..."?