A sentence that opens with a numeral
numeral-sentence-starton by default (info)English
A sentence that opens with a numeral, such as "20 people came."
Example
How to fix
Spell the number out ("Twenty people came.") or recast the sentence so the number comes later ("The meeting drew 20 people.").
Why it matters
English readers find the start of a sentence by its capital letter. A sentence that opens with a numeral ("20 people came.") hides that boundary, and the number can read as the end of the sentence before. Most English style guides ask for the number to be spelled out at the start of a sentence, or for the sentence to be recast. A year ("2026 was a good year.") cannot be spelled out and is not reported.
What it does not flag
A year ("2026 was a good year."), a numeral followed by a capitalised word or a mark ("1 Introduction", "9:00 Opening remarks"), list items, headings and tables, and lines that do not end as a sentence are not reported. Nor is a number after text with no full stop ("Lane" on the line before "2 contains"), after a label written with a full stop ("vol. 28", "H.R. 5376") or an abbreviated title in a citation ("Co. Litt. 113 a"), since chaff cannot tell that a sentence starts there. A clause number that opens a numbered paragraph ("2.1 the term starts on signing.") is not a figure and is not reported when the clause next to it (2.0 or 2.2) opens a line too. Only English sentences are read.
Turning it off or relaxing it
Technical details
- Layer
- L2
- Status
- stable
- Severity
- info
- Languages
- en
- Suited to
- business, technical, blog, legal, docs, academic, literature, speech
Levels
Set a level for this rule under rules in chaff.yaml. With nothing set, it runs at the level its genre gives it (see By genre below).
| strict | warning |
|---|---|
| normal | info |
| relaxed | info |
This rule has no limit to count to. A level sets how a finding is marked: relaxed keeps the finding and marks it a step lower.
By genre
- Runs by default in
- technical/spec, technical/readme, blog/tech, blog/essay, blog/owned-media, business/proposal, business/report, business/email, business/press-release, business/meeting-notes, legal/contract, legal/statute, legal/judgment, legal/patent, docs/manual, docs/faq, docs/glossary, academic/paper, literature/fiction, literature/essay, literature/poetry, literature/play
- Turned off by the genre in
- speech/address, speech/transcript
Message
The sentence opens with the numeral "{numeral}"
Rewrite depth (chaff fix-plan --depth): light — words and sentences; the structure and the voice stay
This page is built from the rule's definition file:packages/chaff/rules/numeral-sentence-start.yaml