a 150 proof
BACKGROUND.
I was on Usenet a couple of weeks ago, and some idiot was trying to defend use of the phrase “a 150 years”. He claimed that “a 150″ was how to say “a hundred and fifty” as opposed to “one hundred and fifty”, which he claimed sounded “stilted and pompous”. When people told him he was wrong, he launched into a diatribe about how this is English, not French, and there is no governmental agency determining the rules of the language, and thus the rules of the language were to be determined by popular usage. When informed that he was the only one defending this phrase, and thus that it was not popular at all, he said that he wrote “150” on a card, asking random people to pronounce it. He said most of them said “a hundred and fifty” and so that made him right. When told he was missing the point, and that “a 150″ would mean “a a hundred and fifty”, he would accuse people of being “language fascists”. He refused to listen to what anyone had to say because they “gave no reasons to support” their arguments. So I wrote this formal proof.
PROOF.
Prove: “a 150 years” is a silly phrase.
Given:
1. The numeral 300 is pronounced “three hundred”.
2. The numeral 200 is pronounced “two hundred”.
3. Numbers can be used as nouns AND adjectives.
4. Adjectives modify nouns.
5. Nouns can be modified by multiple adjectives.
6. Nouns cannot modify nouns.
Assumed:
1. The indefinite article “a”, being singular, is roughly equivalent to the adjectival number “one”. Thus, “a year” equals “one year” equals “1 year”.
2. The adjectival phrase “hundred” minus the “one” or “a”, as in “hundred fifty” or “hundred and fifty” or “hundred-dollar bill”, implies a singular hundred, or 100, unless other numerical modifiers are added, as in “two hundred”.
3. The phrase “one hundred and fifty” is equivalent to “one hundred fifty” is equivalent to “150”.
4. In the phrase “150 years”, “years” is the noun, and “150” serves as the adjective that modifies that noun.
5. The phrase “a one year”, when “year” is the object noun, contains a redundancy. (When there is a hyphen, as in “a one-year trip”, “one-year” becomes an adjectival phrase.)
6. Redundancies are silly.
Point #1
a. The numeral 100 is pronounced “one hundred”. (G1, G2)
b. It can also be pronounced as “a hundred”. (A1)
Point #2
a. “[one hundred fifty] years” is equivalent to “[150] years”. (A3)
b. “[one hundred and fifty] years” is equivalent to “[150] years”. (A3)
c. “[a hundred and fifty] years” is equivalent to “[150] years”. (A1, A3, P1b)
d. “[hundred and fifty] years” is equivalent to “[150] years”. (A2, A3)
Conclusion #1
[150], [one hundred fifty], [one hundred and fifty], [a hundred and fifty], and [hundred and fifty] are all variations on the same numerical “word”. In the case of “[150] years”, the numerical “word” serves as an adjective. (P2a-P2d, G3, G4, A4)
Point #3
a. “a [one hundred fifty] years” contains a redundancy. (A3, A5, C1)
b. “a [a hundred and fifty] years” contains a redundancy. (A5, P1b, C1)
c. “a [hundred and fifty] years” contains no obvious redundancy. However, as we showed in Conclusion #1, [hundred and fifty] equals [one hundred fifty]. Therefore, the phrase contains a redundancy. (A2, A5, C1)
d. “a [150] years” contains a redundancy. (A3, A5, C1)
Conclusion #2
The phrase “a 150 years” is silly indeed. (P3d, A6).
POSTSCRIPT.
The poster acknowledged that I did back up my reasoning, but then he went back to the “one hundred and fifty sound stilted and pompous” argument, which means he continued to miss the point. The guy was almost certainly a troll, although seeing as the thread went on for weeks (to which this proof was my only contribution), it may not have been a troll, as trolls have much shorter attention spans than that. People on crack also have short attention spans, so that can’t be it either.
And yes, I am a loser for (1) writing out a formal proof on something so inane (2) using usenet lingo (3) using usenet and (4) enumerating the reasons that I am a loser.