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Could you instead use any two numerical digits? Then you've got a tagging system with up to 100 tags. This assumes you're writing according to guidelines that

Could you instead use any two numerical digits? Then you've got a tagging system with up to 100 tags. This assumes you're writing according to guidelines that insist you spell out all numbers. i.e. 58 is always intentionally "fifty-eight", so "58" must be your own meta text.

chickensong 3mo ago
I think you can use whatever you want. The point is just to drop a quick marker that you can find later, and not interrupt your flow.
- sublinear 3mo ago
  Ah, never mind. A slight refinement needed here. AP style only spells out one through nine. 10 and above are written as numerals. So, you'd get 10 tags, not 100. I think the regex would be: /(?<!\d)\d{1}(?!\d)/
kazinator 3mo ago
> writing according to guidelines that insist you spell out all numbers What? There exists such a guideline, which is not limited to very small numbers that can be written in at most two words? That would have you writing things like one million, four hundred fifty-three thousand, one hundred fifty-eight instead of 1,453,158. "TK: for the thousand one hundred and eleventh time, ditch this idiotic editing job"
- sublinear 3mo ago
  No. I was thinking of AP style [1], but I was mistaken. Anyway, it's not like these guidelines are at the level of consistency you're probably expecting. I will merely take inspiration and strictly spell single-digit numbers "zero" through "nine" and otherwise apply leading zeroes to miscellaneous annoyances (dates, time, etc.). The "real" style guidelines have absurd exceptions that are completely irrelevant to me. My parent comment wasn't an entirely unreasonable idea though [2]. There's generally a less than one percent chance of a high value two-digit number occurring. Three digits and above are even less likely. [1]: https://apstylebook.com/ask_the_editors/style_guidance https://apstylebook.com/ask_the_editors/style_guidance [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law#Generalization_to_digits_beyond_the_first https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law#Generalization...

chickensong 3mo ago

I think you can use whatever you want. The point is just to drop a quick marker that you can find later, and not interrupt your flow.

sublinear 3mo ago
Ah, never mind. A slight refinement needed here. AP style only spells out one through nine. 10 and above are written as numerals. So, you'd get 10 tags, not 100. I think the regex would be: /(?<!\d)\d{1}(?!\d)/

kazinator 3mo ago

> writing according to guidelines that insist you spell out all numbers What? There exists such a guideline, which is not limited to very small numbers that can be written in at most two words? That would have you writing things like one million, four hundred fifty-three thousand, one hundred fifty-eight instead of 1,453,158. "TK: for the thousand one hundred and eleventh time, ditch this idiotic editing job"

sublinear 3mo ago
No. I was thinking of AP style [1], but I was mistaken. Anyway, it's not like these guidelines are at the level of consistency you're probably expecting. I will merely take inspiration and strictly spell single-digit numbers "zero" through "nine" and otherwise apply leading zeroes to miscellaneous annoyances (dates, time, etc.). The "real" style guidelines have absurd exceptions that are completely irrelevant to me. My parent comment wasn't an entirely unreasonable idea though [2]. There's generally a less than one percent chance of a high value two-digit number occurring. Three digits and above are even less likely. [1]: https://apstylebook.com/ask_the_editors/style_guidance https://apstylebook.com/ask_the_editors/style_guidance [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law#Generalization_to_digits_beyond_the_first https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law#Generalization...