Over the last few weeks I have been spending alot of time working on final edits for a paper and a proposal my collaboration has been trying to finish. It brings me to inevitable grammar question which google and basic grammar books seem not to be able to answer. Below I list some of my dilemmas. Many concerns are related to fractional or decimal numbers.
1.) Do we see no event (or events)?
2.) Is our expected background 0.6 +- 0.5 event (or events)?
3.) Do we expect 0.2 misidentified photons (or photon)?
4.) Are our detectors one-inch thick, 1-inch thick, or maybe even one-inch-thick or 1-inch-thick.
5.) Is it ever okay to use numerical representation for whole numbers less than 10?
6.) Are three semicolons and one colon too many for a sentence that makes up an entire paragraph? Just how many are to many?