2.287 USAGE NOTE

You put 'about', 'approximately', 'around', 'roughly', 'some', and 'something like' and in front of a number.

• About 85 students were there.
• Every year we have approximately 40 pupils who take mathematics.
• It would cost around 35 million pounds.
• It costs roughly £55 a year to keep a cat in food.
• They have to pay America some $683,000 this year.
• Harrington has cheated us out of something like thirty thousand quid over the past two years.

You put 'odd' and 'or so' after a number or amount, and 'or thereabouts' after an amount.

• ...a hundred odd acres.
• For half a minute or so, neither of them spoke.
• Get the temperature to 30°C or thereabouts.

2.288

You can indicate a range of numbers using 'between' and 'and', or 'from' and 'to', or just 'to'.

• Most of the farms around here are between four and five hundred years old.
• My hospital groups contain from ten to twenty patients.
• ...peasants owning two to five acres of land.

Note the use of 'anything' before 'between' and 'from', to emphasize how great the range is.

• An average rate of anything between 25 and 60 per cent is usual.
• It is a job that takes anything from two to five weeks.