Here’s this week’s pop quiz! What’s wrong with this sentence?

“2020 has been like the tornado in The Wizard of Oz, ripping us all up from our familiar lives and depositing us in a strange new world.”

The answer? You can’t start a sentence with a number. If the writer had said…

“The year 2020 has been like the tornado in The Wizard of Oz, ripping us all up from our familiar lives and depositing us in a strange new world”

…it would be correctly written.

If you find you’ve started a sentence with a number, it usually takes little effort to fix it, as with the tweak I did to the sentence above.

For example, consider this sentence:

“86% of respondents admitted they spend too much time on Facebook.”

I can easily correct it to move the number with changes like these:

  • According to a recent survey, 86% of respondents admitted they spend too much time on Facebook.”
  • Not surprisingly, 86% of respondents admitted they spend too much time on Facebook.”
  • When asked, 86% of respondents admitted they spend too much time on Facebook.”

If you realize you started a sentence with a number, take the time to fix it, because it will take very little time to do so, but make you a better business writer when you do.

Now, what if you have no way to rewrite it and you MUST include the number at the beginning? Simply write it out and it will be correct, like this:

  • “Twenty twenty has been like the tornado in The Wizard of Oz, ripping us all up from our familiar lives and depositing us in a strange new world.”
  • “Eight-six percent of respondents admitted they spend too much time on Facebook.”

As you can see, writing out the number can be awkward, as with the “twenty twenty” example, but the “eighty-six” example is okay.

How do you decide between writing out the number and rewriting the sentence so the number is not at the beginning? Go for clarity. Whatever makes your sentence easier for your reader to comprehend is the correct answer.

Sharon Ernst is a retired freelance copywriter now on a mission to improve the business and marketing writing skills of today’s workforce with her blog, newsletter and online classes.