Start spelling each word as you count, starting with one.

How high do you have to count before you reach a number that has the letter "a" in it?

Given that we are to count the number, it is assumed we are limited to the counting numbers, in other words, the natural numbers.

If one is limited to the standard American English name for the numbers, the first occurance of an "a" occurs in 1000 (one thousand).

Limited to standard English names, the first occurance occurs at 101 (one hundred and one -- British English).

If we are counting, stopping with the first occurance of "a" in the English Phonemic Representation of numbers, we can stop at 8 (āt).

If we can use any actual spoken language where we have the natural number spelled "one", then we can count in the Romance language, Walloon (aka Walon), one...deus...troes... and stop at cwate, i.e. 4.

Edited on February 27, 2008, 10:45 am

Posted by Dej Mar on 2008-02-26 22:31:39