At 2004-02-23 12:04, Alois Bauer wrote: >> At 08:34 20.02.2004 -0800, you wrote: >> >On Fri, Feb 20, 2004 at 06:19:20AM -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] enlightened us >> >thusly >> > > For those of you in Europe: Is there some sort of formalized >> > > convention on the usage of a comma to separate integers from decimals >> > > in a number? I wonder if it has something to do with using SI units. >> > > I say this because I have a digital caliper that when switched to >> > > millimeters, it changes the decimal point to a comma. >> > >> > > Here in the US as you know it is more prevalent the use of the decimal >> > > point and the comma to separate the thousands, as in $1,000.00 I can >> > > see the practicality of using a decimal comma as it is less probable >> > > to be a printing mistake compared to the decimal point. This must be >> > > a pain to Casio making different calculators for the US and Europe. >> > > By the way, I am a metric freak, which my AutoCAD friends here at work >> > > do not appreciate, however I can't see myself going to the decimal >> > > comma. It just seems unnatural, like driving on the left side of the >> > > road (joke by the way). -- Author: INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> > >> > >> >Yes, I think this is what you are looking for: >> > >> >Ireland uses the standard English convention, and from what you say, the >> >US also copies that. The English had it first, you know. >> > >> >The rest of Europe, driving on the right, and doing other logical >> >things, swaps the full stops, and commas. As long as we all read the >> >numberts left to right no real confusion results. AFAIK, it's �1,000.00 >> >in Ireland, but �1.000,00 in Germany, France, etc. >> >> Yet another case, we in Switzerland use 1'000.00 >> THIS is of course the only right way ;-)))) > >Edi, > >I configured my Win2k here to use the single quote character (apostrophe) as >thousand-separator; so I avoid confusing thousand-separator with decimal point >or decimal comma. >AFAIK Italians uses decimal comma too (virgola). > >Another point of confusion in correspondence between countries/cultures is the >writing of date and the various separator characters used. >Here also Windows could be configured to avoid misunderstanding between english >(GB, USA, Asia) and german language by using date format like dd.MMM.yyyy or dd- >MMM-yyyy. Abbreviation of month's names in both languages is nearly the same, at >least cannot be muddled.
I think it's better to use the ISO norm like for example: 2004-02-24 (use Google to find details). I already use this format (but even without the dashes) since the early 1980's. The great advantage is that it's sortable (also easier sortable by humans). When you write out the year completely it's quite clear that this can never be the European notation: dd/mm/yy or the (even sillier) American/English order: mm/dd/yy. -- Author: Jaap van Ganswijk INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Hosting, San Diego, California -- http://www.fatcity.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB CHIPDIR-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
