A simple request:

Please don’t write “100s” in a full essay-style newsletter or blog post. As in, “I have made 100s of mistakes” or “By the time I got to college, there were 100s of degree options.” The word “hundreds” exists for that very purpose.

I sometimes wonder how far the kneejerk move toward textual/linguistic economy in the writing of numerical amounts might extend. What’s next? Millions? “On the release of his first major app, the tech mogul made 1,000,000s.”

Here’s something I don’t wonder about: whether this reaction on my part, which is ingrained and involuntary, makes me a crank on such issues. Hand up.