U.S. TV ad: Twenty-nine a month

Replies: 11 - Last Post: Oct 16, 2012 10:59 PM Last Post By: Kerouac2

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Oct 15, 2012 6:33 AM
Posts: 9,194

U.S. TV ad: Twenty-nine a month

So far, I've heard it only on AT&T commercials for the company's U-Verse television service: There's an announcer's voice telling you what you'll receive as a subscriber, "for only twenty-nine a month." You see $29 on the screen at the same time, so it's clear that the number is a dollar amount, but it annoys me not to hear "twenty-nine dollars." Granted, we wouldn't include the word "dollars" for $29.50 or $29.99, just "twenty-nine fifty" or "twenty-nine ninety-nine," but until now I hadn't heard even dollar amounts referred to without the word "dollars." AT&T has another, more expensive package for $79 a month that they tell you costs "only seventy-nine a month."

Am I just a nit-picker? Is this progress of some sort?

pinchaque

Oct 15, 2012 11:02 AM
Posts: 5,730

Here on ads for expensive homewares they say "Only two nine nine five"

nutraxfornerves

Oct 15, 2012 12:18 PM
Posts: 6,608

There's a home alarm company here that has a jingle that they will monitor your alarm for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for $9.99. Their motto (and their phone number) is 24/7 4 9 99.

I once had one of those confusing conversations with someone about elevation. I mentioned that a city was 75. We then went around with him says "that's really high" and me saying "not really; and that's only the highest points." We finally figured out that I meant literally 75 feet and he was using 75 as shorthand for 7500.

DianaHaddad

Oct 15, 2012 8:26 PM
Posts: 2,620

Not exactly related, but there's a late-night infomercial that has some 70s actress in it. She talks about how her skin looks years younger than it really is. At one point she says, "People tell me I look like 30." I always think "30 what?" It might not be a compliment.

VinnyD

Oct 16, 2012 4:17 AM
Posts: 32,305

Leaving off the "dollars" is pretty normal for big numbers. Or maybe it's a matter of context. But people will certainly say that someone is asking six hundred thousand for their house but is unlikely to get more than four hundred thousand, and no one will ask "six hundred thousand what?"

Maybe with smaller numbers (under 100) there would have been some ambiguity between dollars and cents in the past, and "29 a month" therefore still sounds unusual. But now that keyboards don't bother with a cent sign anymore, maybe the oddness of leaving out dollars will also disappear.

The "US English" iPad keyboard offers me €, £, and ¥ but not ¢. Which is fair enough. I've used € and £ but I don't think I've needed a ¢ until now.

nutraxfornerves

Oct 16, 2012 7:24 AM
Posts: 6,608

Seven iPad keyboard tricks

Hi, Dan Miller, Editor at Macworld here, and I wanted to talk to you today about the iPad keyboard and seven tricks that I think everyone should know about.

2. You can also swipe up on some keys to insert special characters. So if you swipe up on the dash, you get an en dash. Swipe up on the dollar sign and you get the cents symbol. One thing I like is that this is one way to get smart quotation marks.

VinnyD

Oct 16, 2012 7:55 AM
Posts: 32,305

Thanks. Never tried that on the dollar sign. What does he mean by smart quotation marks? «These things, perhaps.»

And what does this ₩ mean? (Also at the dollar sign.).

In any case I think I'm right that most keyboards don't have a ¢ sign now.

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