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Commas and Numbers
In many European languages, commas are used as decimal separators. The only English-speaking country
which uses this convention is South Africa. Thus, “1,5 V” means “one and one-half volts”.
Another method of writing numbers is the international system writing style
[1]. They write the number fifteen million as
“15 000 000”. The only punctuation mark is the decimal mark;
a period in English text, a
comma in all other languages (however ISO standards recommends the use of comma instead of points
also in English speaking countries). For example, “twelve thousand fifty-one
dollars, seven cents, and half a mill”, is written in symbols as “$12 051.070 5”
in English text, but “$12 051,070 5” in text of any other language.
In many places, English writers often put commas between each group of three digits. They would write
the number fifteen million as “15,000,000”. A number with a decimal does not use commas
in the fractional portion. Thus, “twelve thousand fifty-one dollars, seven cents, and half a
mill” is written in symbols as “$12,051.0705”.
Historically, writers in many European languages used exactly the opposite convention. They would write
the above quantities something like “15.000.000” and “₣12 051,070 5”
[2].
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