Negative Numbers
The name of a negative number is the name of the corresponding positive number preceded by "minus" or (American English) "negative". Thus -5.2 is "minus five point two" or "negative five point two". For temperatures, Americans colloquially say "below" —short for "below zero"— so a temperature of -5 ° is "five below".
Read more about this topic: English Numerals
Famous quotes containing the words negative and/or numbers:
“Mothers often are too easily intimidated by their children’s negative reactions...When the child cries or is unhappy, the mother reads this as meaning that she is a failure. This is why it is so important for a mother to know...that the process of growing up involves by definition things that her child is not going to like. Her job is not to create a bed of roses, but to help him learn how to pick his way through the thorns.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“What culture lacks is the taste for anonymous, innumerable germination. Culture is smitten with counting and measuring; it feels out of place and uncomfortable with the innumerable; its efforts tend, on the contrary, to limit the numbers in all domains; it tries to count on its fingers.”
—Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985)