Anto'nio Martins-Tuva'lkin wrote: > On 2003.08.06, 11:12, Philippe Verdy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > the placement of the currency unit symbol or multiple is language > > dependant, and the same local practices are used with the > euro, as the > > one used for pre-euro currencies. > > You mean that Dutch should write one euro as "1,- EUR", while Portuguese > as "1EUR00", and perhaps British as "EUR 1.00"?... It may be the case, but > I'd found that a bad idea and worth fighting against.
Why? Different countries always used different characters as decimal or "grouping" separators for numbers. The Italian for "one and a half euros" is "uno virgola cinquanta euro" (where "virgola" means "comma"). Should we say "comma" and write a dot!? > After all the euro is a common currency and its figures should be > written in a common way. Why? > > In fact, the position of the currency unit and decimal separator or > > placement of the negative sign depends mostly of the current locale > > (language/region) and not on the indicated currency, so this > > convention is applied locally for *all* currency units. > > Nope, this is not true: In most cases, it is: amounts in foreign currency are normally formatted according to local conventions. E.g. a price in US$ on an Italian magazine would probably be formatted as "$2.345,50", not "$2,345.50" or "2,345$50�". > > Using the cent sign is mostly US specific and the symbol is not > > recognized as such in most European countries, so the cent sign is > > bound directly to the dollar. > > [...] then I suppose there is a > theoreitical possiblity that it may be used as a symbol of euro cent > (though I personally prefer "cEUR"). The problem is not *which* symbol to use for cent: it is the concept itself that cents may need a symbol which is not familiar in most EU countries. I guess that Ireland is the only euro-zone country where you can see a price expressed in cents, such as "55 cents". In most other countries of Europe, the same amount would be expressed as "0.55 euros". _ Marco
