dubdobdee | form follows function

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i: "World War Two"
ii: "World War 2
iii: "World War II"
iv: "the Second World War"
v: "the 2nd World War"

none of these are wrong, though v is seriously ugly -- however, as a sub and house-style gatekeeper i prefer the format of i-iii and the style of i

this is because
a: you should write out small numbers in full (one-to-nine in my book),
but more inportantly
b: the cardinal in iv is too big long and dominant a word, so that it leaves you with the subliminal impression that what's important in the phrase (and thus the event) is secondness, as opposed to it being a WAR involving the WHOLE WORLD

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From:

alexmacpherson.livejournal.com

I've never seen v) in a formal publication, and hope never to. Agree on iv) though it wouldn't make me flinch as much as v). Kind of dislike ii) for the reasons you give for preferring i) - it's rarely acceptable to use the usual Arabic numerals for numbers under 10. (Exceptions...the only one I can think of is when you have percentages? Even then I prefer to write out eg "five per cent", but when you get into "1.5 per cent" and so on, it's better to be consistent.)

I prefer iii) most though! I think it adds to the ~gravity~ of the situation. Same reasoning as using Latin numerals for monarchs.