125
votes
How do you say 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 in words?
It's:
one hundred quintillion
or:
a hundred quintillion
The words for very large numbers
If you're wondering how to form other huge numbers like this, here's the pattern:
A thousand thousands is a ...
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41
votes
Accepted
"One of THOSE days" vs "one of THESE days"
One of these days
One of those days
These are idioms.
The former means sometime in the near future. So you can say "we really must visit them one of these days".
The latter (one of those days) ...
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36
votes
How do you say 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 in words?
Wikipedia lists large scale numbers here.
As only the 10x with x being a multiple of 3 get their own names, you read 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 as 100 * 1018, so this is
100 quintillion in American ...
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36
votes
Accepted
Is there a rule that prohibits us from using 2 possessives in a row?
I've answered essentially the same question over at english.stackexchange.com: Why is “our today's meeting” wrong?
Usually, a noun phrase in English must have exactly one determiner: you can say "I ...
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33
votes
Why is there no article after "no" in "I have no car"
Articles belong to a group of words called "determiners". Besides articles, there are other determiners in the English language, and "no" is a determiner too.
Let me quote from BBC:
No is a ...
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33
votes
Accepted
Why is there no article after "no" in "I have no car"
"A" is like saying "one":
I have a car
I have one car
Logically then, saying "no" is like saying "zero":
I have no car
I have zero cars.
Therefore, there is no need for an article.
"Not" is ...
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32
votes
Accepted
When is 'what' used for living beings?
Which is ordinarily used when asking for the identity of a specific member or members of a known group:
A: The government said they would release three prisoners.
B: Which prisoners? There are ...
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31
votes
Can "few" be used as a subject? If so, what is the rule?
We use "little" for uncountable nouns and "few" for countable nouns.
In your sentence
Little has changed at work since the last employee survey was carried out.
The general situation has changed a ...
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29
votes
Accepted
(The) Putin's ratings shot up. Is the definite article allowed here?
You should not use the in
The war campaign has shot up Putin's ratings.
Yes, the noun "ratings" is definite, but it already has a word that indicates whose ratings they are: Putin's ratings.
You ...
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25
votes
Accepted
There's 'NO' my wallet - Is it right grammatically?
If there is not any wallet there, let me know.
If there is not my wallet there, let me know.
If there's no wallet there, let me know.
If there's no my wallet there, let me know.
Sentence (1) is ...
23
votes
Is there a rule that prohibits us from using 2 possessives in a row?
There isn't a rule that you can't use two possessives, but they don't indicate possession of the noun at the end, but instead each one modifies the next phrase.
Our last week's meeting
Is ...
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22
votes
"The" vs "that"
At a very basic level, that is the verbal counterpart to pointing at something in order to focus another person's attention on it in particular, so that the person does not mistake something else ...
- 119k
22
votes
Accepted
Can I say "This your pen is beautiful"?
It's not correct English as you intend it.
"This" and "Your" are determiners, and specifically referring determiners. And you only use one referring determiner at a time.
This pen
My pen
the ...
- 176k
22
votes
"Look at the pictures" or "Look at these pictures"?
Either the or these is fine, though the meaning is subtly different.
"The plural noun" indicates you are talking about a (singular) group of items (plural) that are known to be the subject ...
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21
votes
She does homework every day vs She does her homework every day vs She does the homework every day
All your examples are grammatically correct.
I haven't collected statistics but I'd guess "her homework" is most commonly used. You could certainly say that "her" is not required, as the reader is ...
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17
votes
Is "How much underwear?" okay?
Underwear, like trousers or jeans, are referred to as a pair, because it's a throwback to when pants (pantaloons) originally came in two pieces - a matching pair. A person would put on one leg, tie it ...
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17
votes
Is there a rule that prohibits us from using 2 possessives in a row?
Our last week's meeting
is a little akward, but I for one do not think that it is incorrect.
The answer by Tanner Swett says "it's never acceptable for a noun phrase to have more than one ...
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16
votes
Accepted
Can I use two “half” for emphasis?
No. The three sentences all mean different things.
Half of an apple is eaten means there was one half of an apple, and all of that one-half is eaten. Picture someone cutting an apple into two halves; ...
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14
votes
How do you say 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 in words?
You can call it a hundred million million million.
The three million in a row can be a bit confusing, which is why the word trillion was invented. Trillion is a contraction of tri (meaning three) and ...
- 241
13
votes
Accepted
Is it grammatically correct to say or to write "some brain"?
Could you please give me some example of a more correct form of this kind of expression?
This is tricky. Some nouns are mass nouns, meaning they can be regarded as plural, even in their singular form....
J.R.♦
- 109k
13
votes
Accepted
Does An only come before apple
In English, we use a before words that sound like they begin with consonants.
We saw a book on the table.
There is a spider on your shoulder.
Some words begin with vowels, but when pronounced ...
- 2,767
12
votes
How do you say 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 in words?
one hundred quintillion
You can try all sorts of numbers on a site like this:
http://saythenumber.com/?n=k2Y
- 159
12
votes
Can I say "Any tiger is a dangerous animal"?
Yes, you can, but in the context of your second sentence it makes more sense.
Two zoo workers are talking:
A. That old tiger can't be dangerous, it's hardly got any teeth left.
B. Look, ...
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11
votes
How do you say 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 in words?
Outside of mathematics, it is also common to read such a number as "one hundred million million million".
10
votes
How do you say 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 in words?
As others before me have said, there are names for very large numbers, but these are quite esoteric and people may not know what you're talking about. These names aren't like "thousand" or "million", ...
- 1,179
10
votes
Accepted
Can "either" be used for more than two items?
You've asked two questions here; one in your title:
Can “either” be used for more than two items?
and one in the body of your question:
Is this use of “either” correct in the above paragraph?
...
J.R.♦
- 109k
10
votes
"One of THOSE days" vs "one of THESE days"
The short answer.
The two phrases are idioms.
one of these days
On some day in the future
one of those days
a day when everything goes wrong
So if you want to visit them in the near ...
Em.♦
- 45.2k
10
votes
"A my friend", "A friend mine"
In English we can only have one central Determiner in a noun phrase. Determiners are usually words like a, the, no, some, any, which, my, your, his, her and so forth.
Because we can only have one of ...
10
votes
Use of "the" and cardinals
When using a cardinal number to form a noun phrase you can always use the definite article to identify a specific instance of a number of things, in the same way as you would with any other noun ...
- 4,659
10
votes
Problem regarding the use of determiners in the English language
"There is still little milk in the glass."
I think this is grammatically sound, but it's not idiomatic. It's not something we're likely to say. It sounds very awkward. We would say "...
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