How Would You Count Numbers in the Word Limit for the Sending Spell?

In my weekly group, there was a use of Sending which the spell's description (new or legacy) did not seem to consider. We (the players) were spamming the Sending spell to an adversary, in hopes of throwing them off in an upcoming fight. As this was purely for narrative purpose, and group fun, so the DM was a lot more lenient on what would be allowed. Such as allowing several dozen digits of Pi (3.14159...) to be sent as a message. However, that ended up raising several questions about Sending's rather arbitrary limits. Here I'd like to discuss the main one:

Do you think that numbers all count as a single word in Sending, or would you count them as multiple words? 

1. "1256"  (1 "word")
2. "One-thousand, two-hundred, fifty six" (4 words)
3. "One thousand, two hundred, fifty six" (6 words)
4. "One thousand, two hundred and fifty six" (7 words)

Other combinations/considerations exist, but these are the most obvious formats. How it would interact with decimals and decimal places,  as an example. The method I feel most applies to Rules As Intended (RAI) is version 3, as a larger number is more "information" then a single digit number. Version 4 feels like unnecessary bloat that does need to be communicated to get the meaning across.

I agree. In the case of indefinitely long numbers like Pi, keep in mind that the character casting the Sending is speaking all of this aloud, so you can't go too far. RAW, you could keep going until you need a long rest, but RAI, I feel like a message that takes longer than a minute to convey would stretch the bounds of the spell. That's just my opinion though. 

Quote from wagnarokkr >>

Given that there are a variety of ways of expressing numbers in text (e.g. "one thousand two hundred" vs. "twelve hundred") it seems much easier and less nitpicky to treat any number as a single word.

Conceptually, a larger number does not contain more information than a single digit number.

  In most cases, I would agree that counting large numbers as a single word would be beneficial to the fun of the game while not breaking the balance. The use in this case was something that "for good group fun" was intentionally trying to break that balance. That would be stating every individual digit of Pi for as long as they can in an effort to harass the target the spell. RAW, that could go on indefinitely, or at least until the PC is forced to take a long rest (I can't remember/find the 2024 rules for avoiding long rests).

Would a circumstantial time limit, such as 1 minute, be appropriate in this case? Even that feels generous when considering the 25 word limit of the spell, and that the average English speaker can say 173 words per minute (Taken from Mental Floss Magazine article How Many Words Per Minute Does the Average Person Speak?).