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The euro sign and the cent sign

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  • 17-01-2002 7:38pm
    #1
    Yoda
    Registered Users Posts: 1,853 ✭✭✭


    Someone asked whether the cent sign (¢) should be used with our new currency or not.

    Irish stamps coming out at Christmas have the letter "c" on them. Likely the "c" is going to be seen commonly enough throughout Europe.

    Typographically, however, there's really no reason not to use the ¢. It's available in fonts, and adds variety to the look of a page. On the Mac OS, type option-4 to access it. On Windows, it's at alt 0162 I believe.

    The Commission made a big deal about inventing € the euro sign so that our currency could compete typographically with $ the dollar sign and £ the pound sign and ¥ the yen sign. Why not use the cent sign? Compare the following:

    Just my 2¢ worth.
    Just my 2c worth.

    To my mind, the second just looks pathetic.


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    #2
    Victor
    Registered Users Posts: 78,370 ✭✭✭✭Victor


    Originally posted by Yoda
    The Commission made a big deal about inventing € the euro sign

    Not really, it was originally just 'a design' for a t-shirt to be handed our at a press briefing in Dublin a few years ago and it kinda just stuck after that.


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    #3
    Yoda
    Registered Users Posts: 1,853 ✭✭✭Yoda


    Victor said
    Not really, it was originally just 'a design' for a t-shirt to be handed our at a press briefing in Dublin a few years ago and it kinda just stuck after that.

    The actual glyph might have had its origin as a T-shirt logo, but the Commission quickly seized on it for the utility it would have, and the status it would have, in the set of other major currency signs £, $, ¥. (There are others, for the Korean won and the Mongolian tugrik...)

    I know this because I am one of the people on the committees which had to get the EURO SIGN encoded in the Unicode standard and ISO/IEC 10646.

    Interestingly, there was some bitching about this character from the Germans and the French, who were happy to use "F" and "DM" all those years. I guess they wanted to use "E".

    For most European keyboard layouts the euro sign is on alt-E. In Ireland and Britain it's not because we (Ireland as represented by me in the committee that made the recommendation) pointed out that we use alt-E for é.


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