Discussion of Numerical Punctuation

[Electroman]

payload past 4,5M

Nitpick, pet peeve and a side bar: The idiocy of the Americans still using Miles, pounds, gallons is only matched by the idiocy of the Europeans using a comma when they should be using a period.

 

[jkn]

Nitpick, pet peeve and a side bar: The idiocy of the Americans still using Miles, pounds, gallons is only matched by the idiocy of the Europeans using a comma when they should be using a period.

I wonder which one is original: 1,000,000.00 or 1.000.000,00
I personally use 1 000 000.00 or 1 000 000,00 depending on environment.
Then there is a question what 'bi' means in billion?
All other units are market after number except $100, why?
ISO 8601 is logical system for time (2018-01-04T12:45:37Z), of course it is not in common use anywhere.

 

[dhanson865]

Nitpick, pet peeve and a side bar: The idiocy of the Americans still using Miles, pounds, gallons is only matched by the idiocy of the Europeans using a comma when they should be using a period.

But! — but! you left out the oxford comma!

It should be: Nitpick, pet peeve, and a side bar

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I wonder which one is original: 1,000,000.00 or 1.000.000,00

Continuing the aside ...
Neither. There was no universal system for formatting numbers. Eventually, especially due to printing, it was whittled down to 3 and then finally 2 systems.

Yes, _3_. The mid-point (·) was used quite a bit instead of the period.

ISO 8601 is logical system for time (2018-01-04T12:45:37Z), of course it is not in common use anywhere.

I suspect that it's used billions of times per day. Log files can get pretty big.[/QUOTE]

 

[ggr]

Continuing the aside ...
Neither. There was no universal system for formatting numbers. Eventually, especially due to printing, it was whittled down to 3 and then finally 2 systems.

There sort of is -- ISO 31-0 standard ISO 31-0 - Wikipedia . Among other things, it says:

• Numbers consisting of long sequences of digits can be made more readable by separating them into groups, preferably groups of three, separated by a small space. For this reason, ISO 31-0 specifies that such groups of digits should never be separated by a comma or point, as these are reserved for use as the decimal sign.

It allows either period or comma for the decimal, though... doesn't help a lot there.

 

[jkn]

There sort of is -- ISO 31-0 standard ISO 31-0 - Wikipedia . Among other things, it says:

It allows either period or comma for the decimal, though... doesn't help a lot there.

That is only sensible thing to do. There is no way to make 750 million Europeans to change from , to .

 

[AudubonB]

Continuing the aside ...
Neither. There was no universal system for formatting numbers. Eventually, especially due to printing, it was whittled down to 3 and then finally 2 systems.

Yes, _3_. The mid-point (·) was used quite a bit instead of the period.



I suspect that it's used billions of times per day. Log files can get pretty big.

Milliards of times per day, at any rate.

 

[Brass Guy]

Since we call it a decimal point, do they call it a decimal comma?

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Since we call it a decimal point, do they call it a decimal comma?

In Portuguese, yes (vírgula decimal). At least there are many Google hits on it. It seems to me that more of the hits in Portuguese for decimal separator (separador decimal) seem to be discussing configuration.

 

[jkn]

Yes, computers use ISO 8601, but does that make it commonly used?

Of course it is called decimal comma.

I did quick poll:
cd /usr/share/i18n/locales

English style:
grep -l "^decimal_point.*U002E" * | wc -l
93
grep -l "^mon_decimal_point.*U002E" * | wc -l
129

European style:
grep -l "^decimal_point.*U002C" * | wc -l
64
grep -l "^mon_decimal_point.*U002C" * | wc -l
70

Spanish speakers don't agree! European style:
"Spanish locale for Argentina"
"Spanish locale for Costa Rica"
"Spanish locale for Cuba"
"Spanish locale for Spain"
others use English style.
Brazilians use European style.

Russians use both:
decimal_point "<U002C>"
mon_decimal_point "<U002E>"
Ukrainians use Russian when speaking Russia, European if speaking Ukraine.

French locale for Canada defines monetary mon_decimal_point "<U002C>", but does not define decimal_point. Some others do same. Perhaps result is European style, because of i18n.

grep -l "^decimal_point.*U002C" * |xargs grep ^title
az_AZ:title "Azeri language locale for Azerbaijan (latin)"
be_BY:title "Belarusian locale for Belarus"
bg_BG:title "Bulgarian locale for Bulgaria"
bs_BA:title "Bosnian language locale for Bosnia and Herzegowina"
ca_ES:title "Catalan locale for Spain"
crh_UA:title "Crimean Tatar (Crimean Turkish) language locale for Ukraine"
cs_CZ:title "Czech locale for the Czech Republic"
da_DK:title "Danish locale for Denmark"
de_DE:title "German locale for Germany"
el_CY:title "Greek locale for Cyprus"
el_GR:title "Greek locale for Greece"
eo:title "Esperanto locale"
es_AR:title "Spanish locale for Argentina"
es_CR:title "Spanish locale for Costa Rica"
es_CU:title "Spanish locale for Cuba"
es_ES:title "Spanish locale for Spain"
et_EE:title "Estonian locale for Estonia"
eu_ES:title "Basque locale for Spain"
ff_SN:title "Fulah locale for Senegal"
fi_FI:title "Finnish locale for Finland"
fr_BE:title "French locale for Belgium"
fr_FR:title "French locale for France"
fr_LU:title "French locale for Luxemburg"
gl_ES:title "Galician locale for Spain"
hr_HR:title "Croatian locale for Croatia"
ht_HT:title "Kreyol locale for Haiti"
hu_HU:title "Hungarian locale for Hungary"
i18n:title ""
id_ID:title "Indonesian locale for Indonesia"
is_IS:title "Icelandic locale for Iceland"
it_IT:title "Italian locale for Italy"
ka_GE:title "Georgian language locale for Georgia"
kk_KZ:title "Kazakh locale for Kazakhstan"
ky_KG:title "Kyrgyz Language Locale for Kyrgyzstan"
ln_CD:title "Lingala locale for Democratic Republic of Congo"
lt_LT:title "Lithuanian locale for Lithuania"
lv_LV:title "Latvian locale for Latvia"
mg_MG:title "Malagasy locale for Madagascar"
mk_MK:title "Macedonian locale for Macedonia"
mn_MN:title "Mongolian locale for Mongolia"
nb_NO:title "Norwegian (Bokmal) locale for Norway"
nl_NL:title "Dutch locale for the Netherlands"
pap_AN:title "Papiamento Language for the (Netherland) Antilles"
pap_AW:title "Papiamento Language for Aruba"
pap_CW:title "Papiamento language for Curaçao"
pl_PL:title "Polish locale for Poland"
pt_BR:title "Portuguese locale for Brasil"
pt_PT:title "Portuguese locale for Portugal"
ro_RO:title "Romanian locale for Romania"
ru_RU:title "Russian locale for Russia"
ru_UA:title "Russian locale for Ukraine"
rw_RW:title "Kinyarwanda language locale for Rwanda"
se_NO:title "Northern Saami language locale for Norway"
sk_SK:title "Slovak locale for Slovak"
sl_SI:title "Slovenian locale for Slovenia"
sq_AL:title "Albanian language locale for Albania"
sr_RS:title "Serbian locale for Serbia"
sv_SE:title "Swedish locale for Sweden"
tg_TJ:title "Tajik language locale for Tajikistan"
tr_TR:title "Turkish locale for Turkey"
tt_RU@iqtelif:title "Tatar language locale using IQTElif alphabet; for Tatarstan, Russian Federation"
uk_UA:title "Ukrainian Language Locale for Ukraine"
vi_VN:title "Vietnamese language locale for Vietnam"
wo_SN:title "Wolof locale for Senegal"


grep -l "^decimal_point.*U002E" * |xargs grep ^title
aa_DJ:title "Afar language locale for Djibouti (Cadu/Laaqo Dialects)."
ak_GH:title "Akan locale for Ghana"
ar_AE:title "Arabic language locale for United Arab Emirates"
ar_BH:title "Arabic language locale for Bahrain"
ar_DZ:title "Arabic language locale for Algeria"
ar_EG:title "Arabic language locale for Egypt"
ar_IQ:title "Arabic language locale for Iraq"
ar_JO:title "Arabic language locale for Jordan"
ar_KW:title "Arabic language locale for Kuwait"
ar_LB:title "Arabic language locale for Lebanon"
ar_LY:title "Arabic language locale for Libyan Arab Jamahiriya"
ar_MA:title "Arabic language locale for Morocco"
ar_OM:title "Arabic language locale for Oman"
ar_QA:title "Arabic language locale for Qatar"
ar_SA:title "Arabic locale for Saudi Arabia"
ar_SD:title "Arabic language locale for Sudan"
ar_SS:title "Arabic language locale for South Sudan"
ar_SY:title "Arabic language locale for Syrian Arab Republic"
ar_TN:title "Arabic language locale for Tunisia"
ar_YE:title "Arabic language locale for Yemen"
bem_ZM:title "Bemba locale for Zambia"
ber_DZ:title "Amazigh language locale for Algeria (latin)"
ber_MA:title "Amazigh language locale for Morocco (tifinagh)"
bn_BD:title "Bengali/Bangla language locale for Bangladesh"
bn_IN:title "Bengali language locale for India"
ckb_IQ:title "Kurdish language locale based on Arabic letters"
cmn_TW:title "Mandarin Chinese locale for the Republic of China"
de_CH:title "German locale for Switzerland"
dv_MV:title "Dhivehi Language Locale for Maldives"
dz_BT:title "Dzongkha language locale for Bhutan"
en_AU:title "English locale for Australia"
en_CA:title "English locale for Canada"
en_GB:title "English locale for Britain"
en_HK:title "English locale for Hong Kong"
en_IN:title "English language locale for India"
en_NG:title "English locale for Nigeria"
en_NZ:title "English locale for New Zealand"
en_PH:title "English language locale for Philippines"
en_SG:title "English language locale for Singapore"
en_US:title "English locale for the USA"
en_ZA:title "English locale for South Africa"
eo_US:title "Esperanto locale for the USA"
es_DO:title "Spanish locale for Dominican Republic"
es_GT:title "Spanish locale for Guatemala"
es_HN:title "Spanish locale for Honduras"
es_MX:title "Spanish locale for Mexico"
es_NI:title "Spanish locale for Nicaragua"
es_PA:title "Spanish locale for Panama"
es_PR:title "Spanish locale for Puerto Rico"
es_SV:title "Spanish locale for El Salvador"
fa_IR:title "Persian locale for Iran"
ga_IE:title "Irish locale for Ireland"
gv_GB:title "Manx Gaelic locale for Britain"
hak_TW:title "Hakka Chinese locale for the Republic of China"
he_IL:title "Hebrew locale for Israel"
hi_IN:title "Hindi language locale for India"
hy_AM:title "Armenian language locale for Armenia"
iw_IL:title "Hebrew locale for Israel"
ja_JP:title "Japanese language locale for Japan"
km_KH:title "Khmer locale for Cambodia"
ko_KR:title "Korean locale for Republic of Korea"
kw_GB:title "Cornish locale for Britain"
lg_UG:title "Luganda locale for Uganda"
lo_LA:title "Lao locale for Laos"
lzh_TW:title "Literary Chinese locale for the Republic of China"
ml_IN:title "Malayalam language locale for India"
ms_MY:title "Malay language locale for Malaysia"
mt_MT:title "Maltese language locale for Malta"
my_MM:title "Burmese language locale for Myanmar"
nan_TW:title "Min Nan Chinese locale for the Republic of China"
ne_NP:title "Nepali language locale for Nepal"
om_KE:title "Oromo language locale for Kenya."
or_IN:title "Odia language locale for India"
sa_IN:title "Sanskrit language locale for India"
sd_PK:title "Sindhi language locale for Pakistan"
si_LK:title "Sinhala language locale for Sri Lanka"
so_SO:title "Somali language locale for Somalia"
ta_IN:title "Tamil language locale for India"
te_IN:title "Telugu language locale for India"
the_NP:title "Tharu language locale for Nepal"
th_TH:title "Thai locale for Thailand"
ti_ER:title "Tigrigna language locale for Eritrea."
ti_ET:title "Tigrigna language locale for Ethiopia."
tk_TM:title "Turkmen locale for Turkmenistan"
unm_US:title "Unami Delaware locale for the USA"
ur_PK:title "Urdu Language Locale for Pakistan"
uz_UZ:title "Uzbek (latin) locale for Uzbekistan"
uz_UZ@cyrillic:title "Uzbek (cyrillic) locale for Uzbekistan"
zh_CN:title "Chinese locale for Peoples Republic of China"
zh_HK:title "Chinese language locale for Hong Kong"
zh_SG:title "Chinese language locale for Singapore"
zh_TW:title "Chinese locale for Taiwan R.O.C."

 

[HankLloydRight]

I just have to throw this in here.. in Inglourious Basterds when Christoph Waltz (as Hans Landa) read the script that was written as:

"In 999,999 times out of a million"

Being from Austria, he did the scene as this (skip to 6:06):

But Quentin Tarantino decided to leave it in that way instead of re-shooting it the "right" way he intended it to be read: "nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine times out of a million".

 

[Johann Koeber]

before I read this thread, I knew what I was doing

/* confused */

 

[swaltner]

The only thing better than a standard way of doing something is another standard way of doing the same thing!

 

[arcus]

The only thing better than a standard way of doing something is another standard way of doing the same thing!

Or as someone said in the past, where there's 2 people there are 3 opinions.

I wonder how often we run into some serious "oops" situations where people involved in project use different ways to calculate distances and other measurements? Some of the examples that has reached the hall of shame: 10 big miscalculations

 

[cpa]

Then you have the French (perhaps all of Europe?) style of writing numerals. They place a small serif on the number 1; consequently they have to place a horizontal line through the number 7 to avoid ambiguity. Why? Seems like an unnecessary waste of motion. I had a client many years ago who would record her expenditures with this style. Really hard to get amounts to reconcile or foot because I misunderstood some of her figures.

Then, how do you write out multiplication? By fifth/sixth grade we just used parentheses. No more 7x3. No more 7(dot)3. It was 7(3) or (7)(3).

It is peculiar that the numerals before the decimal point are segregated into thousands. Yet the mantissa customarily is not.

And while we are at it, why is rounding always stated (in English anyway) using the superlative (the nearest dollar)? Since there are only two ways to round, should it not be the comparative (the nearer dollar)?

 

[Grendal]

Here is a video of how mistakes (some numerical) have caused rocket failures:

 

[McRat]

There are lots of quirks with our numbering system that will probably never be corrected.

Because we are base10, there are issues with equivalency when doing math using binary computers, so you need deal with it using BCD or other methods. For quite awhile Microsoft Excel would make mistakes in equivalency. Why is that important? It's often used for accounting and engineering. Two identical numbers can be reported as different depending on how you arrived at the number.

We use a l and a I, and a 1, and a | in the base ASCII set. None of those mean the same thing.
We use 0 and O as well as S and 5, etc, etc.

We refuse to do everything on a 24h clock, so there are two 12:00's each day. The separate them by using am pm designators, but confusion is common which is which.

The comma issue is another that should not be there. 123, 456, 789, 000, could be either a list, or a really big number. ie - The comma means multiple things when used with numbers.

AND FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!! There is certainly a difference between 0.01, 0.010, and 0.0100. DO NOT CHUCK SIGNIFICANT DIGITS!!! They actually mean something.

And yes. The US should be metric by now. All our measuring equipment is dual mode now, medical devices are metric, military is metric, aviation design is metric, cars are now metric, and most our food is marked both ways. The construction industry is the last significant holdout.

 

[AudubonB]

There are lots of quirks with our numbering system that will probably never be corrected.

Because we are base10, there are issues with equivalency when doing math using binary computers, so you need deal with it using BCD or other methods. For quite awhile Microsoft Excel would make mistakes in equivalency. Why is that important? It's often used for accounting and engineering. Two identical numbers can be reported as different depending on how you arrived at the number.

We use a l and a I, and a 1, and a | in the base ASCII set. None of those mean the same thing.
We use 0 and O as well as S and 5, etc, etc.

We refuse to do everything on a 24h clock, so there are two 12:00's each day. The separate them by using am pm designators, but confusion is common which is which.

The comma issue is another that should not be there. 123, 456, 789, 000, could be either a list, or a really big number. ie - The comma means multiple things when used with numbers.

AND FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!!

There is certainly a difference between 0.01, 0.010, and 0.0100. DO NOT CHUCK SIGNIFICANT DIGITS!!! They actually mean something.

And yes. The US should be metric by now. All our measuring equipment is dual mode now, medical devices are metric, military is metric, aviation design is metric, cars are now metric, and most our food is marked both ways. The construction industry is the last significant holdout.

That brings up another very important point. A magnificent shibboleth to determine if a writer is either sloppy or ignorant - and those two are by no means mutually exclusive - is to observe inappropriate use (rather than their omission) of significant digits.This latter is, in my experience, far more common than the error you mention. It also is, unfortunately, pervasive through our society, no more tragically so than in intra-scholastic rankings where the difference between a 4.000 average and a 3.998 one means DingleDong1 goes to CalTech and DingleDong2 is banished to (The Horror!) MIT. THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE between those two - not unless the school's teachers perform the impossible task of crafting every single grade on every quiz, paper, test, attendance, attitude and posture with those three significant digits. None. Zero. Zilch. Rien. Zettainanimonashi. Nada.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Then you have the French (perhaps all of Europe?) style of writing numerals. They place a small serif on the number 1; consequently they have to place a horizontal line through the number 7 to avoid ambiguity. Why? Seems like an unnecessary waste of motion. I had a client many years ago who would record her expenditures with this style. Really hard to get amounts to reconcile or foot because I misunderstood some of her figures.

I sometimes use a line through the seven. It's careful laziness. The line allows for sloppiness of strokes on the 1 and 7.

 

[HankLloydRight]

I've been using a slash-7 since high-school when my calculus teacher taught me the practice to make sure that 7s weren't mistaken for 1s.