Interesting...but I can't see how 2 $/kg (which looks akward not unlike some C programming haha..) is better than $2 kg. Now...$2/kg would even be better in my mind. But even so...
When in Europe a few months ago, IIRC every time I saw euros it was 45e or whatever. I was in Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Russia. The Euro wasn't in use the time before...which took me to the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. ---------- Original Message ----------- From: Pat Naughtin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 09:46:54 +1000 Subject: [USMA:26586] M$ > Dear All, > > Here is a piece that I wrote for 'Australian Style', an editorial magazine. > > Cheers, > > Pat Naughtin LCAMS > Geelong, Australia > ** > Money and writing > Pat Naughtin > > 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. > > The year before, in 1792, it was common practice, in writing cheques > and contracts, to place the pound sign (�) 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 fifty'; 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 (�) 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, E. I suppose > people will stick with their current practices and write 1000 E in > Finnish, French Belgian, French, German, Norwegian, Spanish, and > Swedish, and E 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 unit symbols together. > > We also get extremely odd results when journalists have to write > large numbers. Consider $1000m/a and $2000bi/y, which I think were > supposed to mean 'one thousand million dollars per annum' and 'two > thousand billion dollars per annum' respectively. > > With inflation, over many years, the large numbers needed for such > things as market capitalisation of major companies or any number as > part of a set of national accounts is now largely meaningless to all > but a specialist few. We cannot come to terms with these numbers > because inflation has gradually made our numerical language insufficient. > > For a time we tried words like billions, trillions, quadrillions, but > because of their diverse histories and their undefined > meaninglessness, we never comprehended or accepted them fully. > > Fortunately we have available a set of well-established words that > can solve this linguistic problem for us. These words are the > prefixes from the International System of Units (SI). These are not > only readily available but they have used successfully in many > varied places. > > Australians have used the idea of kilodollars for years. This is not > in the sense of 'My aunty died and left me three kilodollars', but > in the form of 'Salary package � 100 k$', sometimes written as 100 k, > without the $ symbol. In French economic circles, they use kF > (kilofrancs) for thousands of Francs and MF (megafrancs) for > millions of Francs. > > I suspect it is only a matter of time before these ideas extend to k$ > > (kilodollars), M$ (megadollars), G$ (gigadollars), T$ (teradollars) > and P$ > (petadollars). ------- End of Original Message -------
