Points versus commas

Jim Daniels

You know the way Europeans reverse the whole decimal point/ comma thing.

Eg twenty thousand euro and sixty cent written as €20.000,60 instead of our way €20,000.60

Are we expected to now go the European route where commas are used instead of decimal points.

Just wondering

RopeDrink

I watched a program in relation to the Euro over seas - there are various alterations to the Euro depending on the country - Typical Example being the pictures and things...

Not sure if it was just my eyes failing, but Im almost certain that I saw differences between the countries Euro Notes, so if thats true, then they'll only change in relation to their money system (i.e. the note pictures, prices possibly that decimal / comma thing)

Seeing as we've always used the decimal point and the comma the same way here in Ireland, I don't see why they'd alter this. It's the way we've always accounted for our money, so any change in that respect would be quite aggitating.

Hope you understand my point - I seem to have an affliction that prevents me from explaining things clearly...

And for the record, I absolutely detest the Euro.

Yoda

Jim Daniels said:
You know the way Europeans reverse the whole decimal point/ comma thing.

Eg twenty thousand euro and sixty cent written as €20.000,60 instead of our way €20,000.60

You mean "twenty thousand euros and sixty cents". The s-less plural is not recommended by the Commission. This has not yet been recognized by the Irish media or indeed by the Minister for Finance. I am working on documentation and will be reporting back to this forum in due course.

Are we expected to now go the European route where commas are used instead of decimal points.

I can root out the official position on this if necessary, but the answer to your question is no, we are not expected to change this cultural practice. Similarly, the Finns will write 20 000,60 €.

Stephen

Rope - the euro notes are common to all eurozone nations.

sceptre

Bugger that. The iso standards on weights and measures for building (don't ask me why I know about this) has recommended since the mid-seventies that for ease of understanding, multiples of a thousand be written with a space instead of a comma

So
12,000

would be written as

12 000

It's what I've used - I do find it easier to read

No need for us to change from a comma "just because others do" - we haven't changed out dating conventions around just because the Americans write mm-dd-yyyy

Yoda

I suppose ISO does recommend a space (or a NBSP) for the thousands separator and a comma as a decimal separator, but in reality these are cultural conventions. Just taking the locales from Mac OS X:

20,000.60 Australia, Ireland, UK, US

20.000,60 Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Catalonia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain,

20 000,60 Quebec, Finland, France, Norway, Portugal, Sweden,

20'000,60 Switzerland

As far as date formats go, the ISO recommendation is the unambiguous yyyy-mm-dd, 2002-02-04 being today. I prefer this to either the US mmddyyyy or the British and Irish ddmmyyyy. I think that the use of 2/4/02 or 4/2/02 is indefensible.

Do we have a standard in Ireland? NSAI wants to know. The Department of Finance told me they prefer the ISO format, but Revenue certainly doesn't send me my tax formats in that format, they use I think 4/2/2002.

Lennoxschips

12 589

Is that twelve thousand five hundred and eighty nine, or is that twelve with five hundred and eighty nine written next to it?