Let us not tackle the question of decimal separators until we deal with a
more fundamental and problematic item; DATES!

Americans abbreviate dates as month/date/year [8/22/07] whereas Europe
seems to use date/month/year [22/8/07]. Not much of a problem for
Aug.22nd, however, it can cause a problem for May 10, 2007: 5/10/07 (USA)
vs. 10/5/07 (Europe)[I would read this as Oct 5th, 2007].

This difference in style causes me more headaches than commas and periods
in currency.

> Being originally from Brazil, I was intrigued by the statement by Richard
> Park:
>
>>While everybody else East of Boston has adopted the metric system, only
>>Americans (and some South American tribals) haven't
>
> Which South American tribes are you referring to?
>
> According to the following Wikipedia page (hardly the most authoritative
> source, but often helpful), only three countries (USA, Liberia, and
> Myanmar)
> do not use the metric system:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_system
>
> And Andrew Grebneff:
>
>> Funny how, despite the metric system having started there, most
>> Europeans (the Brisish excepted) still are unable to write currency
>> figures correctly! Ever notice how they use a comma instead of the
>> correct decimal point? A comma is NOT a decimal point. 500,00¤ does
>> NOT mean five hundred euro; instead it is a meaningless nonnumber. I
>> have had embarrassing experiences with European shell dealers because
>> of this. The way to write five hundred euro in symbols is ¤500.00. I
>> hope European dealers reading this take note.
>
>
> Wikipedia has a page on decimal separators (radix point):
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator
>
> It seems that the world is divided between "point" and "comma" countries.
> I
> don't think it is fair to say that one use is superior to the other, but
> it
> is rather a matter of tradition and history. And yes, it can be quite
> confusing if you do not know which system is being used.
>
> To keep the message shell-related, how did they represent decimal
> separators
> when using money cowries or scaphopods as money? :-)
>
> My two cents,
> Fabio
>


Regards,
Charlie
.................................................
Research Associate - Section of Mollusks
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Assistant Professor - Family Medicine
Fellow-American Academy of Family Practice
Fellow-Academy of Wilderness Medicine

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