Dollar sign placement matters
this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2024
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In Greece we put the currency symbol like in the image, after the numbers. But I think in many other countries they put it before the numbersπ€
It's a standard for the Euro-zone.
It is supposed to be read XXXX,XXβ¬, because what is being stated is the amount and then the currency.
I insisted in writing it in the opposite way and it was an accountant that corrected me.
The actual standard for English language (as well as Irish, Maltese and Dutch) is β¬ first: https://style-guide.europa.eu/en/content/-/isg/topic?identifier=7.3.3-rules-for-expressing-monetary-units
For all other languages it's value first.
Luckily no one remembered to put it in the middle yet, which I assume is only because 50β¬10 looks cursed.
Luckily no one remembered to put it in the middle yet, which I assume is only because 50β¬10 looks cursed.
Exceptionally, the symbol for the Cape Verdean escudo (like the Portuguese escudo, to which it was formerly pegged) is placed in the decimal separator position, as in 2$50.
sweden does something similarly weird. we don't have a currency symbol (unless you count "kr") so the standard way to write a price is "20:-", which used to be "20kr, 0ΓΆre", with the colon as the decimal separator and the line added so you couldn't write in another value, but then we switched decimal separator for currency to "," and ":-" just became the symbol for "money".
you even occasionally see abominations like "19,90:-"...
It's interesting that you have :- as the symbol for money. Where I'm from :- is the symbol for forgetting to give your ASCII smiley a mouth. :-)
We also sometimes use ,- effectively as a symbol for money. I assume it has same origin, would be used as 19,90 ,- too.
Thouhg I think you'd only use it on handwritten stuff, didn't see it in the wild for a long time now that I think about it
I think the French write 1β¬50 iirc. At least I think I've seen it at their gas stations? Does indeed look bad.
I'm going to risk it is tied to the previous standard and has faced resistance to fade.
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In spoken language that makes sense to me, but in written materials I find it more helpful to know the unit in which I should be framing the numeric value I'm about to read first. Dunno why - maybe it's just what I'm used to, and I could adapt relatively easily if I was forced to.
But is that true for other units, too? Like miles or kilometers or kilograms or whatever you use
Yes, actually. I frequently read a number, then the unit, then re-read the number. Or I read the unit, then the number, skipping around a bit.
I personally don't have it that bad but I've similar thoughts about written units. I must admit I do prefer everything working the same and as such think the dollar sign in front is extremely cursed.
I also hate how few people use the ISO 8601 date standard which is super intuitive and machine friendly. And no matter what there is no excuse for the mm.dd.yyyy format.
Yeah, that's actually a very good point. Guess I could probably adapt more easily than I was imagining.
There was an effort to approach spoken and writen speech.
Before the introduction of the Euro in my country we would speak and write XXXX$XX, meaning X amount, then declare the currency, followed by X of cents.
Nowadays we just state X,Xβ¬. So X amount, with X amount of cents, then state the currency.
Speech followed writing.
We still say "15 Euro 20" while writing "15,20β¬" and neither has ever changed, I think. My childhood memories of DM aren't that sharp
X,X� So would that be "twenty, fifteen cents euros?"
In the us, we say "twenty dollars and fifteen cents", and write it as $20.15 which seems like it's the same as your old system. X$.xx in speech
You've read it backwards. Its $15.20 Or to be exact 15.20β¬. So its spoken 15 Euros, 20.
So, a couple of unlikely things will have to happen for this, but if 1) Britain ever returns to the EU and 2) as a joining condition is forced to adopt the Euro, I can all but guarantee that most people will put the Euro symbol in front where the pound sign used to be, even if expressly told not to. Even those in favour of being in the EU.
Retailers would do whatever they felt like on labels and shelves unless it was enshrined law.
And the penchant for using imperial weights and measures would continue unabated across the lands.
as a joining condition is forced to adopt the Euro
That doesn't happen. The treaties can force a country to join the eurozone once they meet the convergence criteria. But the convergence criteria include being part of ERM II for at least 2 years. Participating in ERMΒ II is not mandatory, so countries can simply choose not to, and thus never meet the criteria for adopting the Euro.
For example, out of the six EU countries currently not in the eurozone, only one is participating in ERM II (Bulgaria).
Edit: and there are always opt-outs too. Denmark for example opted out of the Eurozone.
In the US, $ comes before a number, and Β’ comes after. It helps differentiate them at a glance. $1.50 or 75Β’ You only use one symbol at a time.
Not all that many uses for the Β’ left these days, I suppose.
It's standard. Same goes for roubles.
I put one here: $
Excellent work.
$100$
Use them like quotes to cover all your bases.
Like spanish question marks, it's good that you put the first $ upside down.
Β‘Exactamente!
LaTeX: ok, I'll print out 100 in math mode. No problem
By putting the dollar sign first on checks it prevents someone from changing 100$ into 1100$
You could do the same if the dollar sign is on the other side though.
$100
$1000
But that's why you put the "and no cents ~~~~~~~~" at the end
That's the text portion, not the numeric portion.
Oh, I still do the $100.Β°/oo~~~~ in the numeric section too.
I see. I assumed you meant the words because you put the words in your comment.
Seems like a good idea to do both, as you say.
I don't really write a lot of checks any more.
You could do a similar thing for the other style:
100$
Vs
-------- 100$
I would write it $100, but only because it's convention, either method has the same issue and solutions.
100.00$ vs $100.00 I guess? Though I suppose you could turn the period into a comma.
aren't they supposed to look at the fully written out
"One hundred dollars 0/100" part of the check. Either way someone can slip in a 1 or a zero somewhere in the paper.
The they in your sentence, at one point in time, referred to me and my three buddies who worked for Commerce Bank back in the oughts. They left four kids, one of them 18 and the rest 17, in charge of a bank sometimes. I may be personally responsible for commerce bank ceasing to exist.
I had to write a check a few months ago, it was like divining an ancient language.
It cleared through, so I guess I got it right.
1000
Pretty sure the printing out of the amount with letters prevents that.
One hundred dollars -------xx/00
Just like commas.
Let's eat out Grandma!
Proper use of grouping separators (commas in some locales, dots/periods/full-stops in others, although there are some standards that specify spaces instead - which I personally find problematic) might've helped clear up the orientation issue as well.
l10n is a bitch. The exceptions are almost as bad as timezones...
The swiss use ' as a separator. So they would write 900'000 which upside down would look like 000,006 so the confusion could continue
Where is ISO when we need it..
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