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NL888  #505225  Fri, 25 Apr 08 08:33 AM

1 /299,792,458 reads as "one slash two hundred ninety nine million..."?

Context:

The international standard unit of length, approximately equivalent to 39.37 inches. It was redefined in 1983 as the distance traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.

  
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New2grammar  #505228  Fri, 25 Apr 08 08:42 AM

try over or by

  
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NL888  #505348  Fri, 25 Apr 08 02:45 PM

 

   Are you sure?

  Microsoft Text to Speech software reads it as slash.

 Native English speakers confirm this please.

  
Grammar Geek  #505350  Fri, 25 Apr 08 02:50 PM

...in one (pause) two hundred ninety-nine million, seven hundred ninety-two thousand, four hundred fifty-eigths

It's a fraction - you'd have to read it sort of like you'd read 1/3 as one third or 3/8 as three eighths. And that's pretty cumbersome with a number like that.

Othewise, I'd say "one over two hundred..." 

  
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New2grammar  #505354  Fri, 25 Apr 08 02:52 PM

One thing I know for sure is software is dumb. It's true that computers can crunch an incredible amount of data at the speed of light but they seriously lack intelligence.

  
Pter  #505374  Fri, 25 Apr 08 03:47 PM
You don't even need a native speaker to confirm it.  It is definitely not spoken as slash.  The most probable situation you will hear it pronunced as slash is in URLs, e.g. www.englishforums.com/English is pronounced as www dot englishforums dot com slash English.

Not all software are so dumb.  Opera has a plug-in that can read out the English text on a webpage.  It says, ". . . in a vacuum in -PAUSE- one divided by two hundred ninety-nine million, seven hundred ninety-two thousand, four hundred fifty-eight -PAUSE- of a second".  The voice function of Opera is the most intelligent I've ever seen and the pronunciation is much better than other machine-like voice synthesizers.  Give it a try.

  
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New2grammar  #505486  Fri, 25 Apr 08 10:37 PM

Actually I wanted to say computers are not as smart as humans, not even close. I don't mean to insult those who work in this field including myself :) who happens to be in the artificial intelligence field

 

  
Pter  #505529  Sat, 26 Apr 08 01:23 AM
Sorry, I didn't mean that.  I certainly agree with you that even the most advanced software cannot come even close to human in many aspects.  I was just saying one software is better than the other. Programming a software to say "one divided by" or "one third" when there is a fraction is well within the reach of current technology.  It is surprising that many text-to-speech software are still so primitive.

AI field?  That's a very interesting subject.  But there seems to be no breakthrough in recent years as far as I know.  Or perhaps I was just not noticing?

  
New2grammar  #505540  Sat, 26 Apr 08 01:53 AM

There has been some good progress but it's slower than we hope for.

  
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