yes, there is a good reason - but you should ask your lawyer to confirm this. It would be a simple test to examine his credentials. essentially, it is to avoid confusion in a contract or, more generally, any legal document. If, there is a typo or mistake, in the writing, the number in the parens helps to clarify the intention of what was written. The question then becomes do the words supercede the numeral or vice versa? But this is another test for your "lawyer."

But what kind of typo would be at all ambiguous as to the number it refers to? If I write "sevem years" or "eihgt thousand four hunderd dollars", is there any doubt what the number in question is? And as you say, "five (4)" only serves to increase the confusion, not avoid it.

When I was in high school (not in the States, BTW) the system for grading our exams was teachers would handwrite the number, and add the words in parentheses. 8.50 (eight fifty), for example.

I always thought it was because numbers were easier to read (think of a world where everything is handwritten) - but at the same time easier to forge (a 3 can turn into an 8, a 1 into a 7).

The other way around doesn't really make sense to me, but I thought this might help.

Having worked now for two federal judges, I can say that the practice is not universal. I think Manofsugar and Euge have it correct, though, with respect to the practice's perceived utility--it is intended to avoid confusion. The same thinking is what requires one to denote the desired amount in numbers and in words when filling out a check. Another likely reason for the redundancy is this: unreliable copies. Before email and Xeroxes (though photocopies also can be problematic), it was probably quite common for less reliable means of duplicating documents to inadvertently turn an "8" into a "3".

Felix's point is well-taken, too, and is, I suspect, why the practice is no longer considered essential to proper legal writing. See Bryan A. Garner, The Elements of Legal Style 80 (Oxford Univ. Press 1991).

I think we can agree on what Andrew winningly calls "the practice's perceived utility", but I, for one, think that's not the real reason for its use. Instead, I think that it's a bit like using the word "utilize" instead of "use": it's a way for middle-manager types (like, oh, HR directors at the MTA) to puff themselves up and sound Important. I think we're pretty much all agreed that numerals can be ambiguous, but that's beside the point if you're going to be spelling out the numbers, because spelled-out numbers simply aren't ambiguous. Even the crappiest carbon paper can't turn an "eight" into a "three". Here's a question for Andrew, or anybody else out there: have you ever seen this done in a genuinely important legal document?

so that question's been "niggling away for years" has it felix? i can understand how you never got round to asking it.

is there anyone on the "editorial board" who has a degree in navel fluff? where DOES it come from? is it just from my clothes, or is there a navel fluff fairy who flits from bed to bed, taking the fluff out of his or her magic fluff bag?

I recently got done clerking for a federal district judge in Manhattan who insited that I use both words and numerals in opinions I drafted. But, as I alluded to above, the federal appellate judge I am now clerking for does not so insist. Dealer's choice, I guess.

Also, while I do not discount the modern day usage of this--and, for that matter, a host of other unnecesary legalisms--by hacks looking to inflate themselves, I do think that the relative ease of reading numerals, along with bad copying and/or illegible handwriting were the reasons, once upon a time, for inserting written-out numbers, as well.

Thanks Andrew -- Some good answers there. As every New Yorker reader will attest, it's a lot easier to read "38,931" than "thirty-eight thousand nine hundred and thirty-one". Although when it comes to "five (5)" that doesn't really apply. As for you, Eurof, I have two words, and the second one is "off". A man uninterested in the minutiae of life is a man insensitive to all that is beautiful.

Basically, you are all retarded and I am right. In reference to Felix, it is to avoid confusion - in the sense that someone might write four and then put in parens (44) - that is an example of a mistake clarified by the number in the parens. If, through the remainder of a document, the numeral fourty four and the appropriate written version of said numeral is used, a judge would interpret the drafter's intent in the context of the above information. This is an example of when the written and numeric version of the number is helpful. But many corporate lawyers think it is unnecessary and use one or the other. Now we should accept my veracity and move on to something more important such as why Ann Coulter is allowed to live and breathe the same air I do and the worrisome scenario of George W. Bush's re-election.

i'm sorry felix, it's just that the rights or wrongs of using figures in parentheses around written numbers in legal texts whatever Bryan A. Garner, in The Elements of Legal Style 80 -- are there 79 other volumes? i do hope so--(Oxford Univ. Press 1991) has to say is not really anything that pumps my, or anyone else's, nads. mind you, neither is anything to do with ann coulter. please stop.

your idea about beauty and the minutae of life is interesting, but only up to a point. that way madness lies, as well as train- and plane-spotting. did you do that as a child, felix? i read a poem about it once:

e103.
a new one for me.
i grow like a tree
with each intercity.

does that speak to you?

No, Eurof, I never trainspotted. I have, however, read The Mezzanine. Does that count?

only if reading it is irredeemably pointless and boring, if you have to read it wearing a parka while living with your mum and having NHS glasses with one lens covered up by cardboard, and if it gives you acne. also other countries must not be able to believe that sentient beings read it for pleasure without some more sinister motive. then and only then would reading it count as anything as bad as train or plane spotting.

I recall that the word takes precedence over the numeral, in the absence of repetitions which tend to make the numeral more credible. Or did I dream it?

how about this one, for a plane spotter:

Come, Boeing 707,
Send me to heaven
My existence you'll leaven
Like an MD-11

But! Nobler by far
Is a BAe Tristar

Here's one for you, Eurof you analyst.

NOK, NOK, NOKing on heaven's gate.
surely it is heresy
to short ERICY?

that's total crap, stefanie. did you have a sense of humour bypass this morning to go with an attack of chronic dur-brainedness?

no analyst calls ERICY "eric-ie" but rather by its full name, ericsson. so your poem attempts to rhyme (sort of), but doesn't. what is the significance of "NOKing on heaven's GATE"? is it supposed to mean something? a reference to "knocking on heaven's DOOR" as famously covered by Guns n'Roses, perhaps? give me strength.

finally, if you are attempting to refer to the nit-picking meaninglessness of my erstwhile job, you cocked that one up too; i am a telecom SERVICES analyst, analysing stocks like Deutsche Telekom. go on, find a rhyme for Deutsche Telekom that isn't "telecom".

It's just one (1) of the many ways in which lawyers fail to understand how language works.

Rhymes with telecom -- admittedly not the best words. Yeah, door, not gate.

i'm sorry i was rude, stefan.

Stefanello, don't concede so fast.

and the significance of the film heaven's gate to a whimsical take on the punning inherent in the analysis of telecoms equipment stocks is. . . ?

go on. have a go; i'll try to think about possible connections and get back to you

Knocking on heaven's gate makes sense if you belong to that late-90's cult of the same name that believed UFO's were waiting behind a comet to pick them up so they all donned new sneakers and committed collective suicide.

Obvious parallel: You belonged to that late-90's cult that believed UFOs (unidentified futuristic objects) were about to pick up your stocks and take them through the stratosphere so you drank the Koolaid all the way to the crash.