€ symbol

Blisterman

It seems that the right way to put the € symbol is before the amount.

Eg €15. But, my question is, why is it after the amount in other eurozone countries such as France? Surely when they were making a fixed currency, they should have fixed the way it's written. Which is the proper way to put it?

Before seems right, since thats the way other currencies are written, such as $ and £. And plus afterwards is for the cent amount. Otherwise it's the awkward 15€30c

Chris P Duck

It is probably written after the amount in France because when they used francs an amount was written with the symbol afterwards (e.g. 25f)

EKRIUQ

Excel accounts package and word have the € sign after the amount for France as well. I suppose its a case of them driving on the wrong side of the road aswell. And it would take a referundum for them to change. And don't forget they eat snails aswell.

Blisterman

Well, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_sign
before the amount is technically right, but some countries use it afterwards.

seamus

Probably something to do with reading the symbol in a linear fashion.

The fact that it's one of the only things that doesn't conform to our linear writing style, I'll sometimes trip up when reading things like "$3,500,000 was given...". I'll read it to myself as "Three and a half million was given...", and then my brain will stop - realising that I'm not talking about euro, so that figure needs to be qualified, i.e. the word "dollars" is missing. If it's "€3,500,000", I'll still say "Three and a half million", but I'll know in the context that we're talking about money, and when I'm talking about euros, my brain doesn't need to qualify it with a currency type, so "Three and a half million" is ok.

If you read 3,500F, you'd say "Three and a half thousand francs", because the symbol for the currency appears in the logical place you expect it to while reading linearly.

Talliesin

Blisterman wrote:

Before seems right, since thats the way other currencies are written, such as $ and £.

$ meaning what? $ meaning dollars in US, CA or AU it goes before, but meaning escudo it goes between the escudo amount and the centavo amount, or just after the escudo amount if there is not centavo fraction.
It's all a matter of convention, though strictly the € sign is supposed to appear before the entire number even in countries that didn't have that convention with their previous currencies, it's inevitable that people will do what they used to do with $ or F.

In any context where there could be ambiguity and in any international context (even within the Eurozone) one should use the ISO 4217 code anyway, in this case EUR. It's safe enough to use € since there is only one currency that uses that symbol (unlike $, £, ¥, ₣ and others that are shared between two or more currencies) but it's better to be consistent in these things.

Victor

Blisterman wrote:

Otherwise it's the awkward 15€30c

no it would tend to be 15,30 € in many places.

If you read 3,500F,

Well surely it would be FF to distinguish it from the Communaute Financiere Africaine franc (XOF / XAF), used by a whole load of African countries. It is tied to the euro as are the Comptoirs Francais du Pacifique francs (XPF) and Comoran francs.

Benin
Burkina Faso
Cameroon
Central African Republic
Chad
Congo, Republic of Cote d'Ivoire
Equatorial Guinea
Gabon
Guinea-Bissau
Mali
Niger
Senegal Togo

Talliesin

Victor wrote:

Well surely it would be FF to distinguish it from the Communaute Financiere Africaine franc (XOF / XAF)

F, ₣ and FF were all used. On a similar note ignore anything you read about differences between $ with one or two vertical strokes, £ with one or two horizontal strokes, and various claims as to differences in ¥ or 円 - while different forms are more or less common for different currencies these aren't consistent. Really, the only precise symbols are the ISO 4217 codes.

For that matter it would be more likely 3'500F than 3,500F.

seamus

Talliesin wrote:

F, ₣ and FF were all used. On a similar note ignore anything you read about differences between $ with one or two vertical strokes, £ with one or two horizontal strokes, and various claims as to differences in ¥ or 円 - while different forms are more or less common for different currencies these aren't consistent. Really, the only precise symbols are the ISO 4217 codes.

For that matter it would be more likely 3'500F than 3,500F.

You know *far* more about this topic than is healthy

Talliesin

seamus wrote:

You know *far* more about this topic than is healthy

NSAI/ICTSCC/SC4 subcommittee members should have at least a passing knowledge of this stuff.
(I'm not even the leading expert in these matters on boards).

dahamsta

Someone invite Yoda along to the party, I have terrible insomnia at the moment.

"It's Euros!"

Victor

Talliesin wrote:

£ with one or two horizontal strokes

Usage is quite different with the one-stroke being more British (Empire) and the two stroke more Italian, of course with Malta being an oddity.

Talliesin

Victor wrote:

Usage is quite different with the one-stroke being more British (Empire) and the two stroke more Italian, of course with Malta being an oddity.

Those are the more common forms found in those countries respectively (Irish use followed British, Turkish use followed Italian), which is why Hewlett Packard encoded ₤ separately from £ for use for Lira in the HP Roman-8 character set (and ₤ remains a separate character in the UCS for roundtrip compatibility). However this is purely a matter of style and exceptions are found in both directions (that is, the double-barred form is sometimes used in Britain and Ireland and the single-barred form is sometimes used in Italy and Turkey). Hence the £ character should be used for all of these currencies with the style used being a matter for the writer, font-designer, logo-builder, graphic designer, etc. to decide on as they wish.

dearg_doom

Talliesin wrote:

For that matter it would be more likely 3'500F than 3,500F.

If you are talking about France there, it would be:

3.500F


They use a decimal point where we would use a comma and vice-versa:)

Talliesin

dearg_doom wrote:

If you are talking about France there, it would be:

3.500F

D'oh!

vector

I write 500 EUR

You see, if you want to put symbol after if for France then it will look bad here, but if you write EUR instead somehow the above is more acceptable
like

"The minister made available 500m EUR in funds..." looks ok
while
"The minister made available 500m € in funds..." looks bad

Lafortezza

This is the best thread I have ever read!!

dearg_doom

lol

vector

This is the best reply I have ever read (today)