Microsoft Word’s grammar checks don’t warn about a common mistake in English, putting amounts, values, times or dates in order from small to large.
After our article on adjective order in English , Aussie Office Watch reader “MJ” pointed out something that Word doesn’t check for. Maybe it should but for the moment, it’s up to us humans.
The grammar mistake is putting a larger value before a smaller one. Normally the smaller number is first unless there’s a qualifier like “down to” e.g. “priced from $30 to $90” or “discounted from $70 down to $40”.
Same applies to values “please buy between 20 and 40 books”, times “arrive between 2pm and 4pm” or dates “he’s welcome to visit on the 12th or 15th of July” – not “40 and 20 books”, “between 4pm and 2pm” or “the 15th or 12th July”.
It’s an easy mistake to make when documents are edited with the values changing without the sentence structure being altered. Native speakers of other languages sometimes make this mistake.
Unfortunately, there’s no warning from the grammar or style features in Word. Here’s some examples in Word 365 with English language settings but no squiggly lines to suggest that there’s anything wrong.
It’s another example of how Microsoft Office features are very good, but not perfect. Despite Microsoft’s hype, there’s no substitute for a human check of documents, sheets, slides or emails.
It’s tempting to quickly scan a document for squiggly lines but it’s not enough.
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