Quiz 16: English Numerals

From "Best of Ruby Quiz"

Posed by Timothy Byrd

While we normally write numbers using Arabic numerals, numbers can also be written out as English phrases.

For example:

 	7    == seven
 	42   == forty-two
 	2001 == two thousand and one
 	1999 == one thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine

Given that, this quiz is a problem from a Pi Mu Epsilon newsletter

When the integers 1 to 10,000,000,000 are written in the English language and then sorted as strings, which odd number appears first in the list?

Your task is to do the following:

1. Ruby code to translate a number to its English-language form. (My sample version works with integers less than 1072.)
2. a program to determine which odd number in between 1 and 10,000,000,000 would sort first if written in English. (Brute force is the obvious solution, but the computer may have to think about the answer....)”

Excerpt From: James Edward Gray II. “Best of Ruby Quiz (for Christopher Haupt).” iBooks.