In numbers, you have the periods and commas reversed to the way North Americans do it. I assume your way came first, but it make me crazy when I'm over there trying to figure out how much something costs.

If something is five dollars and 50 cents here, it's written 5.50, but you do it 5,50

But if the number is five thousand dollars and fifty cents, you've got it 5.000,50, while we have 5,000.50

Since I grew up with it, to me it makes more sense for the comma to indicate thousands, millions, etc. and the period to indicate the change from a full dollar to only a portion of one. Like a comma indicating a pause in a sentence and a period indicating the stop of one.

So -is this all just to confuse tourists?
[Edited 4/23/06 23:41pm]

Brits don't use commas like that.

Justin1972UK said:

I know. I thought of clarifying, but you guys already know who uses what with their numbers.

You americans are crazy and do it the wrong way...

MikeMatronik said:

Not American. Nice try.


I think it makes more sense to have the functions for commas and periods be the same in numbers as they are in letters.

Since I assume your way came first, why was there a switch? Who was the guy that thought, "I know! Let's bugger up everyone's ability to read numbers when they travel. That'll be fun!"

meow85 said:

last time I visited Canada not even a year ago it was still in America, did that change? seriously, my wife also considers herself as being American.. and Canadian


you have a point.. or maybe... not? just thinking... a period marks the end of a sentence true, but the number continues after the period, in the American AND in the European notation.. so we're both wrong probably?

OK, so let's all use Roman numbers instead, they do not have any confusing commas, which certainly are a devilish thing anyway...




must be Bush!


.
[Edited 4/24/06 2:42am]

Dancelot said:

Oh I know I'm American by that I live in North America, but when I say American I think of someone from the U.S.


Now I'm just confused. I'm overtired and numbers aren't really my strong point.

I really think we need to come up with a universal way of writing numbers. That and get the U.S. to use metric, becuase Imperial measurements don't make any sense.



Who else could it be?

meow85 said:

won't happen in our lifetime


.
[Edited 4/24/06 3:03am]

I'm all of for the metric system.... the Decibet is much better than that antique Alphabet soem still use



Announcer: And now, Mr. Joseph Franklin of the U.S. Council of Standards and Measures.

Joseph Franklin: Thank you. Tonight I'd like to talk to you about how the new metric system of conversion will affect you. This is one in a series of public reeducation programs designed to make Americans aware of the metric conversion to take place in the next ten years. Most Americans already know that the measurement of miles will be discarded in favor of kilometers - a systme of measurement based on the unit of tens and already in use in most of the world. Few people, however, know about the new metric alphabet: the "Decibet"; "deci" from the Greek "ten", and "bet" from our own "alphabet". Let's take a look, shall we? [ holds up large poster of the Decibet ] Now, isn't that simple? Only ten letters. Twn fingers.. ten letters.

[ holds flip cards ]

Now, let's take a look at some specifics.

[ shows Card 1 ] A, B, C, and D: our first and most popular letters will remain the same.

[ shows Card 2 ] E and F, however, will be combined and graphically simplified to make one character.

[ shows Card 3 ] The groupings GHI, and..

[ shows Card 4 ] LMNO will be condensed to single letters. Incidentally, a boon to those who always had trouble pronouncing LMNO correctly.

[ shows Card 5 ] And finally, the so-called "trash letters", or P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, and Z, will be condensed to this easily recognizable dark character.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten! Now, let's take a look at how this change will affect our daily speech habits.

[ shows card ] In the EF grouping addition, the word "eagle" would remain basically the same in character, but would be pronounced "efaglef". However, certain words previously beginning with the letter F, like..

[ shows xard ] .."fish", would be pronounced with an additional E sound: this, "efish". "I caught a big efish."

[ shows card ] "Goat" would remain "goat".

[ shows card ] "Hotel" will carry the G letter addition, but as in many words beginning with the GH sound, such as "Ghana", the G would remain silent; thus, "hotel". However, words beginning wih I..

[ shows card ] .. as in "industry", will be pronounced "gindustry". The meaning will remain the same. LMNO's grouping is similar.

[ shows card ] "Mucus" will be LMNOucus".

[ shows card ] "Light" would remain "light".

[ shows card ] And "open" would then ne "LMNOpen", as in, "Honey, would you LMNOpen the door?" Finally, the "trash letters", or the letters from P to Z, would then make a stop sign appear like this: [ holds up stop sign with unintelligble blotch on it ] So there you have it. We hope to eventually establish the Universal Metric Alphabet in America by 1979. Join me next time, when we explore the changes you'll be seeing in alphabet soup and spelling bee contest rules. But now, let's sing the old favorite, the childhood "Alphabet Song", as we will hear it in the future..

[ singing ] "A, B, C, D, EF.. GHI.. J, K, LMNO.. [ blotch ]"

[ fade out ]

Dancelot said:

Nope.

Dancelot said: