Just an interesting side note to this that when I tried to give out my exams at the U of A, I was forced by the Dean to change back from XX $ format to $ XX! :-S At least I explained to him why I was doing it and he at least was gracious enough to see my point... (a future 'drop' maybe?... Oh, how I hate this term... :-S)
Marcus On Sat, 26 Jan 2002 05:10:07 John Woelflein wrote: > > Pat, >Thank you for answering my question! > Pat Naughtin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Dear John and All, > >I attach some thoughts (below) on currency issues. > >on 2002/01/23 23.31, John Woelflein at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >Money and SI > >The bankers and other regular handlers of money are remarkably conservative. >Recently (2001), the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) changed from using >'pieces of eight' to using decimal currency, dollars and cents, in quoting >stock prices. This change took the NYSE 208 years from the introduction of >decimal currency in the USA in 1793. > >In 1792, it was common practice, in writing cheques and contracts, to place >the pound sign (B#) before the number from fear that a crook might add a >digit or two at the left-hand end of the number. This led to our peculiar >practice of writing one thing and saying another. > >We don't say $50 as 'dollars forty'; we say 'fifty dollars.' Putting the >dollar sign before the number is clearly inconsistent with how we say the >amount. And, just as clearly, we have not yet recovered from the use of the >pound sign (B#) placed before the number in 1792. > >Even within Australia, we are not consistent. We put the dollar symbol >first, as in $12.34, but when we are using cents, we put the number first, >as in 34c. Some other nations do the same as us, and others are more >rational. > >(For the moment I am ignoring the issue of writing $12.34 and saying 'twelve >dollars thirty-four' with the $ sign on the left of the written number and >the word 'dollar' placed in the middle of the spoken number!) > >Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland, the UK, and the >USA place their currency symbols before the number, and Finland, France, >Germany, Norway, Spain, and Sweden place their currency symbols after the >number. > >I am not aware of any official policy with the introduction of the Euro; >there seems to be no set way to place its symbol, b,. I suppose people will >stick with their current practices and write 1000 b, in Finnish, French >Belgian, French, German, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish, and b, 1000 in >Brazilian, Danish, Dutch, English, Flemish Belgian, Italian, and Swiss. >However, they will all continue to say the words with the Euro after the >number. > >The Australian practice of placing the currency symbol before the number >leads to some odd results when we choose to combine the dollar sign with >other symbols. For example, at the greengrocers we see might see a sign that >says $2 kg and we would read this as two dollars per kilogram. It would be >more logical to write it as 2 $/kg, so that the reading and the saying could >be the same. It also makes more sense to write two thousand dollars per >annum as 2000 $/a rather than the clumsy looking, and difficult to read, >$2000/a. It reads better and looks less cluttered if you keep the units >symbols together. > >We also get extremely odd results when journalists have to write large >numbers. Consider $1000m/a and $2000bi/y, which I think were supposed to >mean 'one thousand million dollars per annum' and 'two thousand billion >dollars per annum' respectively. > >With inflation, over many years, the large numbers needed for such things as >market capitalisation of major companies or any number as part of a set of >national accounts is now largely meaningless to all but a specialist few. We >cannot come to terms with these numbers because inflation has gradually made >our numerical language insufficient. > >For a time we tried words like billions, trillions, quadrillions, but >because of their diverse histories and their undefined meaninglessness, we >never comprehended or accepted them fully. > >Fortunately we have available a set of well-established words that can solve >this linguistic problem for us. These words are the prefixes from the system >of international units (SI). These are not only readily available but they >have used successfully in many varied places. > >Australians have used the idea of kilodollars for years. This is not in the >sense of 'My aunty died and left me three kilodollars', but in the form of >'Salary package b Is your boss reading your email? ....Probably Keep your messages private by using Lycos Mail. Sign up today at http://mail.lycos.com
