From: julie@pascal.org   
      
   On Thursday, May 15, 2014 4:18:56 PM UTC-6, William Vetter wrote:   
   > Twenty-five years ago, I defended a chemistry PhD thesis.     
   >    
   > In the experimental section, many chemical syntheses were    
   >    
   > described, and often the sentences began with a numerical    
   >    
   > quantity.  A typical example would be:   
   >    
   > 10.00g sodium was added to a 250mL round bottomed flask.   
   >    
   >    
   >    
   > One of the committee members told me that no sentence can    
   >    
   > begin with a number, meaning no sentence can begin with    
   >    
   > numerical digits.  He crossed out the beginnings of all    
   >    
   > such lines in my thesis manuscript, which was maybe a fifth    
   >    
   > of the sentences in the whole book.  Of course, I wanted    
   >    
   > him to sign the thesis so I could finish, so I changed all    
   >    
   > of them to one of the forms:   
   >    
   > Ten grams of sodium were added to a 250ml round bottomed    
   >    
   > flask.   
   >    
   > or   
   >    
   > Sodium (10.00g) was added to a 250ml round bottomed flask.   
   >    
   > or   
   >    
   > To a 250ml round bottomed flask was added 10.00g sodium.   
   >    
   > Which made him happy.   
   >    
   >    
   >    
   > I have not been able to find this rule in any English    
   >    
   > Composition text or style guide ever.  Not relating to any    
   >    
   > type of writing, technical or fiction.  (Sorry in advance    
   >    
   > if I am completely wrong and it is stated in every rule    
   >    
   > book.)   
   >    
   >    
   >    
   > There are certain situations in fiction where one might    
   >    
   > want to begin a sentence with the Arabic numerals:   
   >    
   > "100" was lithographed into the green scrollwork at all    
   >    
   > four corners of each stock certificate.   
   >    
   >    
   >    
   > Is this acceptable?   
      
      
   I think it's a "style book" issue.  But yes, generally it's numbers spelled   
   out at the beginning of sentences and up to ten (I think).  But for a science   
   document that deals in a lot of numbers it would seem counter-intuitive to   
   write  that there were    
   five of whatsits in one box and 15 in the other.   
      
   Generally, though... there's a style book someplace that will say what it's   
   supposed to be.  For fiction it would be your editor... if that's someone   
   working for a traditional publisher, or yourself.   
      
   -Julie   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)