• The Pantser
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    1972 months ago

    Dollar sign placement matters

    • Blastboom Strice
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      672 months ago

      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 numbers🤔

      • qyron
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        562 months ago

        It’s a standard for the Euro-zone.

        It is supposed to be read XXXX,XX€, 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.

          • @[email protected]
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            142 months ago

            Luckily no one remembered to put it in the middle yet, which I assume is only because 50€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.

            From Wikipedia

            • lime!
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              42 months ago

              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, 0öre”, 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:-”…

              • Rob T Firefly
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                2 months ago

                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. :-)

              • @[email protected]
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                2 months ago

                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

          • MightyCuriosity
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            22 months ago

            I think the French write 1€50 iirc. At least I think I’ve seen it at their gas stations? Does indeed look bad.

          • qyron
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            22 months ago

            I’m going to risk it is tied to the previous standard and has faced resistance to fade.

            • @[email protected]
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              2 months ago

              To a large extent yes. The only exception I know is, like @[email protected] mentioned, Portugal that used the 100$00 format and now uses the 0,5€ format - which is still the closest to the previous standard without looking horrible.

        • @[email protected]
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          2 months ago

          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.

          • @[email protected]
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            232 months ago

            But is that true for other units, too? Like miles or kilometers or kilograms or whatever you use

            • @kn33
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              112 months ago

              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.

              • Ziglin (they/them)
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                72 months ago

                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.

            • @[email protected]
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              92 months ago

              Yeah, that’s actually a very good point. Guess I could probably adapt more easily than I was imagining.

          • qyron
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            2 months ago

            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,X€. So X amount, with X amount of cents, then state the currency.

            Speech followed writing.

            • @[email protected]
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              82 months ago

              We still say “15 Euro 20” while writing “15,20€” and neither has ever changed, I think. My childhood memories of DM aren’t that sharp

            • Dharma Curious (he/him)
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              12 months ago

              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

              • BritishJ
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                32 months ago

                You’ve read it backwards. Its $15.20 Or to be exact 15.20€. So its spoken 15 Euros, 20.

        • palordrolap
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          32 months ago

          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.

          • @lunarul
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            2 months ago

            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 ERM 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.

      • @[email protected]
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        101 month ago

        In the US, $ comes before a number, and ¢ comes after. It helps differentiate them at a glance. $1.50 or 75¢ You only use one symbol at a time.

        Not all that many uses for the ¢ left these days, I suppose.

    • @CrayonRosary
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      372 months ago

      $100$

      Use them like quotes to cover all your bases.

    • @SmoothLiquidation
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      112 months ago

      By putting the dollar sign first on checks it prevents someone from changing 100$ into 1100$

        • @IzzyScissor
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          112 months ago

          But that’s why you put the “and no cents ~~~~~~~~” at the end

          • @essteeyou
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            32 months ago

            That’s the text portion, not the numeric portion.

            • @IzzyScissor
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              32 months ago

              Oh, I still do the $100.°/oo~~~~ in the numeric section too.

              • @essteeyou
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                22 months ago

                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.

          • @[email protected]
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            32 months ago

            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.

      • @[email protected]
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        82 months ago

        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.

        • @Dozzi92
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          32 months ago

          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.

      • @BeMoreCareful
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        72 months ago

        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.

      • @systemglitch
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        22 months ago

        Pretty sure the printing out of the amount with letters prevents that.

        One hundred dollars -------xx/00

    • @[email protected]
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      2 months ago

      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.

      • @[email protected]
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        32 months ago

        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

  • @affiliate
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    132 months ago

    putting the currency after the amount just makes more sense. 100$ is 100 dollars. $100 is dollars 100.

    • @Noodle07
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      102 months ago

      No it’s dollar 1 and zeros

      • @affiliate
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        82 months ago

        it’s how it’s done in most sane parts of the world. it’s not how it’s done in the US, and it trips me up every time

        • @trolololol
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          11 month ago

          I hear their banking system is as outdated as their labor laws and healthcare. And don’t get me started on their 18th century measurement system.

          Metric system is over 200 years old or something.