Why is it called a National Insurance Number? It has half as many letters in it as numbers, shouldn't it be a National Insurance reference, or code, or series of characters?
Replies (14)
Please login or register to join the discussion.
The OED defines a number as (among other things):
An arithmetical value assigned to something or someone, esp. to indicate position in a series, or for purposes of reference, identification, etc.
Something which graphically or symbolically represents a numerical quantity, as a word, figure, or group of these; a numeral; (also) a ticket or label bearing such signs.
So it is not limited to digits.
This makes sense as there are a fair few numbers that cannot be expressed without using symbols, for instance the square root of 2 requires a square root symbol to be expressed, similarly some fractions .
Numbers have to be considered as not merely integers.
You may like to refer to "number b" etc in conversation when discussing an ordered list - I guarantee the other people get annoyed, especially when you point out that you are correct to refer to it as a number!
You may like to refer to "number b" etc in conversation when discussing an ordered list - I guarantee the other people get annoyed, especially when you point out that you are correct to refer to it as a number!
They won't get annoyed if you are discussing hexadecimal.
Alternatively, why call it National Insurance at all? To all intents and purposes it is simply a supplementary tax and generally expended as such.
I think it should be renamed to:
That Thing You Pay Into That You Hope To Get a Pension From Once You Reach Retirement Age But Will Never Get Because The Goverment Robbed You
For several decades I have seen sequences of numbers+letters described as numbers...
"fleet number" RML2760 is an example
"drawing number" X620P is another
VIN (vehicle identification numbers) a further example
"street number" 12A again shows that "numbers" nowadays include letters
I find that what were once "registration marks" are now being described as "registration numbers" by DVLA
I beg to differ! I have no problem with the use of letters as part of a number - it is virtually compulsory in algebra. However, the last letter, A B C or D was nothing to do with the original NI number or code. In the days when people actually had cards and licked the stamps that were stuck thereon, the last letter just meant the quarter when the card ran out. Otherwise they would have all run out at the same time!