[Vocabulary] It's twenty hundred.

[beachboy]

What does "it's twenty hundred" mean when the question is "How much is it?" Twenty dollars? Is it common for natives to say it this way?

 

[emsr2d2]

It wouldn't mean anything to me. I would only expect to hear "twenty hundred" when talking about 8pm using the 24-hour clock. "Twenty hundred" would be written "2000" which, when read out as anything except time, is "two thousand".

We use "number + hundred" for numbers between 1000 and 2000. Something can be described as "thirteen hundred pounds" or "sixteen hundred and fifty pounds" etc.

Where did you hear "It's twenty hundred" in answer to "How much is it?"

 

[beachboy]

It wouldn't mean anything to me. I would only expect to hear "twenty hundred" when talking about 8pm using the 24-hour clock. "Twenty hundred" would be written "2000" which, when read out as anything except time, is "two thousand".

We use "number + hundred" for numbers between 1000 and 2000. Something can be described as "thirteen hundred pounds" or "sixteen hundred and fifty pounds" etc.



Where did you hear "It's twenty hundred" in answer to "How much is it?"

In a conversation with a couple of friends, one of them told me he had heard it in a film, and asked me what it meant. I told him I had never heard it. And then, somebody else pointed out that it was common in everyday English.

 

[Rover_KE]

It's not.

 

[bubbha]

What is the context of this "twenty hundred"? I've never heard anyone use it for a number (i.e. 2,000) or the name of a year (i.e. 2000 AD). You can say "twenty hundred-dollar bills", however.

 

[Skrej]

We use "number + hundred" for numbers between 1000 and 2000. Something can be described as "thirteen hundred pounds" or "sixteen hundred and fifty pounds" etc.

I agree, but at least in AmE we do this up to 10,000, although not with the even thousand intervals, and typically only on exact hundred intervals. If it's money, you'll often hear the 1,000 dollar increments as 'number + grand'.

3,500 = thirty-five hundred
7,600 = seventy six hundred
3,000 = three grand (money), three thousand (other units)

 

[bubbha]

We do this with addresses, too: "8400 Washington Boulevard" is "eighty-four hundred Washington Boulevard". In fact, it would be very strange to hear someone say "eight thousand four hundred Washington Boulevard". Even so, we would not say "twenty hundred" for "2000" in an address: it would be "two thousand".

 

[Rover_KE]

The OP stipulated it's about money.