On 15:53 14 May 2021, Chris said:

NY wrote:



French falls foul of ambiguity because of its quatre-vignts
notation for 80: quatre vignts dix could be any of:

quatre-vignts-dix-huit (98)
quatre-vignts dix-huit (80 18)

A pause makes all the difference. I imagine that French speakers
make a very exaggerated pause in the second case to avoid
ambiguity, whereas almost no pause is needed between non-ambiguous
pairs such as vignt-huit trente-quatre (28 34).

The pause is almost imperceptible, but it is there. It helps in
france that all phone numbers are 10 digits long so any
mistranscription is obvious. Whereas in the UK it's not always
obvious if you've dropped or gained a digit.

If I confirm any 10 digit number (phone number or otherwise) I would
divide it into groups of 2 or 4 digits. I would never use a
combination that switched between a group with an even number of
digits and a group of 3 digits.

For example: 4+4+2 or 4+2+4 etc is okay. But 3+3+4 is not.

On the other hand, a 9 digit number gets special treatment (from me!)
and is preferably spken as 3 groups of 3 digits.

I've heard people use the weirdest groupings for 8 digit bank account
number, when there's nothing simpler than 4+4 digits. Add a bit of
rising intonation at the end of each 4 digit group and it's a doddle to
convey.