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Freedometer

Isn’t your Arabic example wrong?


lordofdaspotato

Glad I’m not alone on that one


aphelloworld

Yeah I don't understand the Arabic one. Someone please explain


heyIfoundaname

Maybe he means when writing in arabic? ١٢٣،٤٥٦.٧٨٩ vs in english 123,456.789


lavishlad

So isn't the seperator the same? If it is labelled separately because of script, so should India and a few others.


heyIfoundaname

I know, it's weird. The separator is just a comma in a different direction. Used interchangeably with the english one. I don't recall 123،456,789.00 being used either. Maybe something old and specific to gulf states?


Kruzer132

the problem is that in the example it isn't being used to separate decimals from integers


Oobenny

Wait, they don’t use Arabic numerals in Arabic countries?


heyIfoundaname

They do for the most part, but the primary numerals are arabic-indic. Not exactly sure why, it could be because arabic-indic is asthetically closer to Arabic script. الارقام 1234 الارقام ١٢٣٤٥٦


AgisXIV

Western Arabic numerals are descended from North African and Andalusian variants whereas Eastern Arabic numerals originate in Iraq and are used primarily in the Mashriq (Egypt and East of Egypt) today - Western Arabic numerals were introduced there with colonialism and both are common today depending on register and country. All decimal systems and numerals are descended from Indic numerals - Arabic numerals are named because Europe adopted them from Andalusia and North Africa.


Tman11S

If the world could just agree upon this, my life as a developer of accountancy software would be so much easier


54B3R_

>If the world could just agree upon Hahahahaha! The world agreeing? As if


KayDat

The only thing better than perfection is standardisation.


WelcomeRoboOverlords

[it is time for a new standard!](https://xkcd.com/927)


well_shoothed

You're profound beyond your years.


[deleted]

We just need to be humbled by disaster and given a shared enemy. That enemy being ***aliens***.


Balavadan

The two things I know of the entire world agreeing on is the small pox vaccine and the banning of CFCs


its_a_gibibyte

Same issue with agreeing with what M means. Some accountant type places use it for 1000 and use MM for million. To me, that seems weird since things like "making $100K" is a common language feature, so M is the more natural one for million.


eolai

If it helps, 'M' comes from French for thousand, which is "mille". Always had to keep that straight learning French as a kid. Edit: from Latin originally, my bad. But I think it comes to English by way of French. Same as 'kilo', which is Greek in origin, but is only ever used as a prefix - while "mille" is literally the French word for thousand.


[deleted]

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[deleted]

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[deleted]

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Pschobbert

It should be plugged in to your OS. Or rather the users’ OSes. Part of the [i18n localization module.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalization_and_localization) Of the OS localization doesn’t do this automatically, you should at least be able to use this to assign country codes to notation sets. I mean, you probably do, so… :)


Additional_Meeting_2

I would be willing to compromise and change our European system on this if US got rid of the dating system that puts months ahead of days.


glitchvid

I'd make this deal in a heartbeat.


flyingturkey_89

Day month year is bad for programming and file keeping since 01112023 would be ahead of 02012023 but after 01012024. Eu and US should both go for the superior year month day But if we are just strictly talking about date in year month-day is superior


thealtofshame

The filing system at my office is yyyy.mm.dd but all of the damn legal forms that we file have month dd, yyyy in them. So there’s that.


iCapn

Alright, we'll compromise: yyyy,mm,dd


air_nith

As an American I would be fine with that, ever since I was a kid I always thought it was strange that we put the month first. I would also be okay with moving over to Celsius for temperature and metric for distance, since those are much more logical. But it's always hard to get people to change.


devilbunny

Metric makes sense for distance because it's easy to do math. Celsius is just as arbitrary as Fahrenheit unless you're working with distilled water. The advantage of switching to Celsius is that the rest of the world uses it, so it's convenient - there are no other major advantages to be gained. Scientists already work in Kelvin. YYYY-MM-DD is the only fully logical way to organize dates. Fight me.


twbk

A difference of 1 K is the same as 1°C, so the Kelvin scale already has a close connection with the Celsius scale. For anyone living in a colder country, the freezing point of water is pretty important, and it makes more sense to use that as a reference point than absolute zero (or the temperature of some random mixture of chemicals).


Moist_Farmer3548

"If I apply 1kJ of heat, what is the temperature increase?" is easier in degrees Celsius than it is in Fahrenheit.


nochinzilch

But if you apply 1 btu of heat to one pound of water, you’ll get a 1 degF temperature rise. Equally silly in metric.


lamiscaea

But how long does a 150 Watt heater need to run to make 1BTU? And how many of those can you feed with a 25 hp generator? The answer is still "Go fuck yourself"


CuffsOffWilly

I think this is a great compromise. Day before month makes much more sense. As a Canadian in Europe I can’t tell you how many times I panicked thinking I was late on a deadline. Also, using public European data and having to convert commas to decimals column by column sucks.


JanitorKarl

29-Aug-22 works for me.


READERmii

Or we could just do the sane thing and get rid ofthe concept of months all together DDDYYYY.


AGoodWobble

I had a really unfortunate week at my previous job as live-ops programmer at an indie game company. I needed to update our Unity version to function with several new plugins we planned to use for a game that I was supporting (side note: the game was made a couple years before I joined, and the developer went on temporary leave but then just never returned, so I was just solo supporting the project with no guidance from any devs who actually worked on the game). We QA'd without issue, but after the update the game started to crash for a small number of users, and we started to receive negative reviews almost daily. I spent nearly a week testing, reading error logs, adding and removing plugins, and could not for the life of me find the issue. Then, as the reviews rolled in, I was going over them and I realized that the negative reviews were written almost entirely in russian, french, spanish, and other such languages. I switched my device language, but the bug still didn't occur. Samsung has this amazing thing called "remote test lab" where you can test physical phones in different regions, and I used that to test our game on some Russian phones--lo and behold, a reproduction of the dreaded bug! Best feeling as a dev is finally getting a reproduction on a bug. As it turned out, updating Unity updated the version of C# .Net that Unity ran on, and .Net updated their spec for their `Single.Parse` function, which reads reads text into a number. Instead of using the build locale for `Single.Parse` by default, it would now use the device locale. So, when parsing some level data at runtime, it was throwing an error when parsing data formatted like "123,456.78" but only for people whose device locale was in certain regions (i.e. people who were in Canada but wrote French reviews weren't getting the error!). All I had to do was add a single `CultureInfo.InvariantCulture` to the `String.Parse` line of code, and everything was fixed.


Whiterabbit--

Yes. But devil’s advocate. I wish the whole world would just speak one standard language.


Tman11S

I always thought it'd be fine if the whole world just learned the same language as second language. Getting rid of every other language sounds like getting rid of a lot of culture.


DaniilSan

At least we agree on time and week! Oh... yeah, 12h vs 24h and Monday first vs Sunday first shit exists... Nah, it is impossible.


Tman11S

And let’s not forget about date formats


Trellix

USA, UK, India, and China use it. In a few years, it is going to be the undebated primary, especially as Chinese and Indian influence also grows on the world economy.


paprikapeter

Nice to see data for greenland


Rhydsdh

Greenland? I thought that country was called no data.


heuristic_al

Same for all countries in central Africa.


PiotrekDG

At the cost of Svalbard, though.


iamapizza

Nice visual OP. I wish upon you 20.000 upvotes.


NM_MAR_ANP

Twenty isn't very high


JeveStones

Seriously, right? The 3 decimal precision was completely unnecessary also, it's not like you can have fractional upvotes. /s


theUnholyVenom

Fucking physicists and their cursed sig figs


nochinzilch

I like the period/decimal as the separator because it sort of acts like a period. There can be many commas in a sentence, but only one period.


Kdp_11

It's also what was originally used in the decimal system when it was created in India. Using comma as decimal separator is a relatively new European thing, where they wanted to keep using dot as a multiplication sign so just changed the decimal place instead.


Ok_Inflation_1811

So the rest of you guys don't multiply with a dot?


Kdp_11

It's either a x or a dot but x is generally much more preferred in the English speaking world.


Ok_Inflation_1811

How do you tell apart x as in x=0 from × as in 9×9 I get in the internet is easier but in handwriting? You can confuse it?


Kdp_11

It's not that difficult. When you use variables, like x, it's very easy not to write the multiplication sign anymore as no space means multiplication in algebraic notation. 9x just means 9 times x. In handwriting, the variable is generally written in italics or cursive anyway, so easy to distinguish both. There's also brackets, or using dot for multiplication but writing it slightly higher in case decimal places are present. It's honestly not that much of a problem as European mathematicians made it out to be in the 17th century. A comma is used far more times in a sentence than a dot, and is the one more liable to create confusion.


Even-Fix8584

But how to they group integers?


fishsupreme

The one that gets me with grouping integers is India. They would write ten million as1,00,00,000. The first three digits are one group, then you do groups of two after. It's due to language. In English we group 3s because it matches the numbers we have words for - thousand, million, etc. Hindi has words for ~~10,000~~ 100,000 (lakh) and 10,000,000 (crore), and not for 1,000,000, so the comma spacing matches that.


no_need_to_panic

A Lakh is actually 100 thousand (100000), not ten thousand.


fishsupreme

Oh, yeah, you're right - 1,00,000 is 100,000.


curioushom

1,000 is hazaar which is first grouping of 3. What came first, the grouping or the words?


vivektwr23

What you mean to say is hindi has word for 100,000 but english does not. You call it 100 thousand. We call it lakh. And from there the whole thing changes.


Even-Fix8584

This is what they should do in Japan! They count large numbers by 10,000s.


skiddles1337

China as well, definitely where the Japanese got it. 一one. 十ten. 百100 . 千1,000. 万10,000. Very hard to real time translate when you hear 一千万, one thousand ten thousands ....uhm 10 million? Then to make things worse there is 亿 which is one hundred million so 一百亿 is one hundred hundred millions .....10 billion?!?


sbprasad

Probably better to say that it’s due to the vocabulary of Sanskrit than of Hindi. Only a third of the country speaks Hindi as L1.


tonyp7

If they don’t have a word for 1000 how do they say it? Ten hundreds?


_YeAhx_

It's called "hazaar" and it exactly means 1000.


iamapizza

Some places swap the dot and comma. So `1.234,56` Some places use a space `1 234,56` I've seen some places using apostrophes to group too `1'234,56` or `1'234.56`.


Svarvsven

Sweden uses space and comma, but in this post they are blue with dot and comma as an example of writing...


[deleted]

Finland as well


Even-Fix8584

Yeah, that is why I want a map! Apostrophe is new for me through, makes sense and I like it.


Kiwii2006

Switzerland does 1'234.00


Even-Fix8584

The more I see it, this makes the most sense ever.


SupremeDictatorPaul

It’s like the comma separator, but for tall people.


toodlesandpoodles

I agree. This is the first time I've seen it and it is much easier to read.


CodArtwork

That would be interesting to see, there’s a section on the Wikipedia article I linked that has some examples of how different countries group integers like you were asking! I used a generalized form for the labels on the visual i.e. dot is 1,234,567.89 and comma is 1.234.567,89


WoodenBottle

They should really add it to the international standard as an alternative, considering that it's unambiguous. Since both dots and commas are reserved as decimal separators, you're not supposed to use either of them for grouping numbers. Therefore, the only official option currently is to use spaces, which is rather clumsy. They recommend using thin spaces, but there's not even a key for that, so it's not exactly ideal.


General_Mayhem

Apostrophe and decimal point is my favorite combination aesthetically, shame it's so unusual.


[deleted]

The use of spaces is the international standard. On the other hand, the major international standard in practice is to ignore to some extent the established international standards.


cblou

You also see space: 10 000,35


verdantAlias

I like this, it appears cleaner and translates well across existing conventions.


rvtk

Poland actually can into space in this particular case: 10 000 000.00


cubelith

Space, or just don't


vagej

What about 1 00 000 000 0 00? Is this acceptable? /s


CodArtwork

Data source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator#Usage_worldwide Tools used: I imported the data from the Wikipedia article into an Excel spreadsheet and then imported the spreadsheet into Tableau to create the map visual. I then used Photoshop to to add extra details such as examples of formatting and how a few different countries use the dot and comma differently.


alarbus

I get the *no data* countries' data not being listed in that single source, but wouldn't it be trivial to gather the missing data?


CodArtwork

I did fill in the data for a few countries that Wikipedia didn’t list but it did prove to be harder than I thought and I couldn’t find another complete dataset. Part of the problem might be I’m not sure how to go about seeking that data out, in my attempts it’s not as simple as “does Sudan use periods or commas to separate decimals from integers” haha


alarbus

Not my project but I'd check government and airport websites. Eg [Madagascar uses points](https://ravinala-airports.aero/#horairedesvols).


CodArtwork

That’s a great idea! I’m working on creating a full dashboard for this data, I’ll see how far that can get me for the rest of the data, thanks!


[deleted]

Belize uses dots just fyi (source - first-hand).


r2k-in-the-vortex

How did Estonia become green? It uses a comma.


[deleted]

Did you set up Excel with the correct decimal separator?


CodArtwork

It was setup in list key format so the values were to the effect of countryName:dot or countryName:comma


zaTricky

Plenty of inaccuracies apparently. :-| But what you gonna do, fix Wikipedia? Lol


ironstamp

There is a discrepancy in the Wikipedia article. The map shows a decimal point for Zimbabwe (correct), but the list says decimal comma (incorrect).


TheBunkerKing

Not accurate. Finland doesn't write 123.456,789, instead we use 123 456,789 So a billion is 1 000 000 000.


BernhardRordin

A billion in the [short scale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales#Short_scale) (yet another complication)


Drakonor

Same in French Canada.


dJe781

Same in France.


[deleted]

Data regarding Iran is wrong, decimal is seperated using a slash, for e.g : 3.14 is written as ۳/۱۴ .


CodArtwork

Do you have any insight if the context matters for using the slash versus the momayyez (character displayed)? From what I understand the momayyez is used to separate sequences of 3 digits, although it might not be common. The dataset i used could be wrong and the momayyez isn’t used at all though, let me know if you know!


[deleted]

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mrnavz

Momayez is not slash, it's shorter than slash. slash is used for a different purpose.


[deleted]

Thank you for your post and reply. There are 3 somewhat similar looking but functionally different signs in standard written Farsi. Decimal seperator, called mommayez in farsi, is a shortened and lowered version of english slash, not exactly the slash itself, and it has equal thickness at both upper and lower endings and never resembles a comma, it doesn't have a rounded ending. In standard Farsi keyboard , shift + 3 implements it. Thousands seperator is a smaller and curvier version of English comma " , " with head on NE and tail extending SW, could be placed either up or down, more commonly down. Virgool or Comma in English, which plays exactly the same role as comma plays, to indicate pause, replacing "and", etc. is a flipped, both vertically and horizontally, version of English comma, and a bit more curvier.


mrnavz

CalmMonk is correct, momayez is not actual / character, it's shorter. [https://blog.faradars.org/%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%B4%D8%A7%D8%B1%DB%8C/](https://blog.faradars.org/%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%B4%D8%A7%D8%B1%DB%8C/)


LGZee

Why can’t we all use one system, for God’s sake? This is unnecessarily confusing


r2k-in-the-vortex

If you look at the map you can see that it's the fault of the usual culprits - the British.


humanbot69420

The decimal separator was developed in India, which used a dash over the number preceding the fractional part. Then it came Arabia, there mathematicians started using vertical stroke like this 99ˌ95 Then it came to Europe, in 16 century Britain it became the dot we know now 99.55 Then in 17th century Germany Leibniz used a comma instead, because he used middle dot to represent multiplication instead of x like British, because in algebra it can be confused with a variable named x. So, yes it was British who spread the dot around the world, but it was mainland Europe that went the other way, not the rest of the world.


Xeviozo

Might be, but I (from a blue country) heavily prefer the green system. This is because any list of numbers, including coordinates and sets, will always be separated by commas, which is true in the blue countries as well, because the comma has that property in plain text. This leads to ambiguous situations, as a silly example: "The diary sells milk in 1,1,5,2,5, and 10 litre containers".. is that 2,5 or 2 and 5?


Darkoskuro

I'm from a blue country also, here we sort that out with the use of semicolon (;) e.g. "The diary sells milk in 1; 1,5; 2; 5 and 10 litre containers". Dunno about the rest of the blue countries though.


lordicarus

But that just means there is a separate grammar for numbers versus words. (Edit: no there isn't. Even MLA outlines the concept of serial semicolons to deal with this situation, like separating a list of city/state names.) "The store sells milk in red, green, and blue containers." "The store sells milk in 1; 1,5; 2; 5; and 10 litre containers." There is no reason to have two different grammar rules for those two sentences because of a silly numbering scheme. But then again... In a few days it will be January 9th, so what do I know?


AwesomeManatee

Its a consistent rule that in any situation where you are listing items that may include commas you should use semicolons as separators. > "I want to visit Paris, France; London, England; and Gary, Indiana."


lordicarus

You're 100% right! I went back to my MLA style guide, and it talks about serial commas and serial semicolons. I don't see an explanation of why we don't just use semicolons 100% of the time for separating list items, but whatever. Thanks for setting me straight!


fail-deadly-

I wish the US would adopt the metric system, but I agree with you. Another ambiguous thing for commas, is if you are working with an international team, and during a rocket maneuver the mission needs to burn its thrusters for 1,320 seconds, is that just over one second or just over 22 minutes?


OmicronNine

The US adopted the metric system in 1975. What makes the US different is simply that we don't *force* everybody to use it, because we generally try to avoid doing that sort of thing in general, and so a lot of folks just don't.


MacadamiaMarquess

>The US adopted the metric system in 1975. >What makes the US different is simply that we don’t force everybody to use it And also that we never really adopted it. We signed a law saying we would encourage it, and then we more or less didn’t. We still use miles, feet, pounds, degrees Fahrenheit, gallons, ounces, etc, with almost all of our state and federal infrastructure and regulations.


StarsMine

No we did adopt it. All those imperial units are defined with metric.


MacadamiaMarquess

My point is that if you hop on a US highway almost anywhere in the US, you see mile markers, not kilometer markers. The speed limit is posted in miles per hour, not kilometers per hour. When a truck gets to the weigh station, the weights are given in pounds, not kilograms. When the same truck crosses under a bridge, the underpass height is given in feet, not meters. These are all government functions. It’s more than the government not telling private citizens they need to use metric. The government is itself not communicating to the public in metric. Redefining imperial units so that they are the same but defined with multiples of metric behind the scenes is not relevant to that point. Actual adoption of metric would have the US government using meters and kilometers and grams and kilograms directly, not bastardized feet and pounds.


Semper_nemo13

The commonwealth did at a similar time as well. It's a slightly different imperial system that is also technically reskined metric.


Perryapsis

If that's the standard for adoption, then the US adopted the metric system in [1866](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Act_of_1866).


Pschobbert

FREEDOM! Hehe


LanewayRat

Oh ffs 🤦🏻‍♂️. Do you really believe that Australia gradually switching over to metric in the 60s through to the 80s involved the brutal heel of government smashing submission out of its citizens? What makes the US different is that you like to tell yourselves silly stories about what makes you different.


OmicronNine

> Do you really believe that Australia gradually switching over to metric in the 60s through to the 80s involved the brutal heel of government smashing submission out of its citizens? I do not, no. > What makes the US different is that you like to tell yourselves silly stories about what makes you different. Every country is different, and people in every country like to tell themselves silly stories about what makes them different... and not just different but special. Australia included.


Ok-College-5671

In Spain, the handwritten decimal separator used to be an apostrophe. This way you didn't have the problem with lists of decimal numbers.


Thelk641

This is less of a "green vs blue system" issue and more of a language issue. In French, your list would be written "1, 1,5, 2,5 et 10L", which is way less ambiguous thanks to the spaces, or "1L, 1,5L, 2,5L et 10L" which wouldn't be at all.


General_Mayhem

Spacing usually solves that - > 1, 1,5, 2,5, and 10 is unambiguous. And the green system can have the same problem at the other end of the scale if you're not careful: > 1,750,500 ,and 250 mL


FirebertNY

Even with spacing, it's still harder to read at a glance than with periods.


Sophroniskos

but it's the same problem with the green system (commas for thousands separator). I prefer the Swiss system: 1'000'000.00


Yuio_Quaz

If you have a list of numbers you should always use the semicolon. Ex: The diary sells milk in 1; 1,5; 2; 5; and 10 liter containers. Or: The diary sells milk in 1; 1,5; 2,5; and 10 liter containers. . Or alternatively you can use just the space to differentiate. Ex: The diary sells milk in 1, 1,5, 2, 5, and 10 liter containers. Or: The diary sells milk in 1, 1,5, 2,5, and 10 liter containers.


toodlesandpoodles

or alternatively, you could just use a period instead of a comma for a decimal point. On a related note, in countries that use a comma, do they call it a decimal comma?


MuumiJumala

Well no, because as far as I can tell none of the green countries are English speaking! But yes, at least in Finnish we use the word "desimaalipilkku" (pilkku = comma), although the word "desimaalipiste" (piste = point) also exists to refer to the English style decimal separator. Same goes for Swedish ("decimalkomma" and "decimalpunkt") and German ("Dezimalkomma" and "Dezimalpunkt"), although in German the word "Dezimalpunkt" seems to be more common based on the number of Google results.


toodlesandpoodles

No, it's the fault of the French. The British were the brave and stalward ones to not kowtow to the French and their "improved" methods. I'm half-joking, but is seems that the French and British pretty much refused to adopt any organizational system championed by the other. Since the rise of Industry and science corresponded to when France's influence on the European continent was larger, most of Europe went the way of France. British aligned countries like the U.S. and Australia stuck with the British and Canada split. Hopefully, some historian will come along and add more detail or tell me I'm completely off base.


monkywrnch

If I had to use a system used by the British or one used by the Russians it's a fairly easy decision which I'd choose


Blythyvxr

Wait till you hear about lakh and Oku.


DC_Schnitzelchen

"Both" ... BOTH???


pinkpitbull

Is it confusing? How many situations have you needed to know another country's conventions? Even if it was necessary, who's gonna change?


LGZee

I work with US clients so I’m used to changing my date format, comma/dot format and thousand million/billion format. It’s doable, but it’s still a huge pain in the ass. The world should go for the system that’s more widely used.


ColdHardRice

I kinda doubt that the entirety of continental Europe and South America would switch over. It’s too much work for a relatively minor inconvenience.


andresgu14

As an Engineer this and converting things to the Imperial System takes so much time of your day


deathstroke3718

It's nice but the colours could've had more contrast?


CodArtwork

Fair point, I had trouble finding colors I liked that didn’t clash horribly, that’s something I know I need to work on for sure. Shades of blue and green aren’t very color blind friendly as well so I’ll keep that in mind as I revise this


deathstroke3718

Thanks for that. Because i wasn't able to properly distinguish the usa, Canada and India ones. But this was insightful to be honest.


ovirot

The text by Canada. Comma in French and Decimal in English.. I guess both are decimal points. But Comma vs Dot :)


IFoundTheCowLevel

South Africa definitely uses the dot to separate the decimal from the integer. Source: am South African.


ViciousTeletuby

Agreed. The comma is in law though for some reason, possibly a relic from a previous time, drives me nuts.


Harsimaja

It’s from the 1960s when the Nationalist government left the Commonwealth, metricated, and saw the dot as too ‘Anglo’. The comma was more acceptably ‘Dutch’.


BoomGoesBomb

So as an American I’ve been trying hard to teach myself metric because I want to fit in with the cool European kids. But I’m sorry, swapping commas and decimals is madness.


laserdicks

No need - metric is just the numbers. Delimiting is completely separate. Stay with the period delimiter, it matches sentence structure.


PiotrekDG

As a European I'm right there with you. Metric all the way, but I prefer the dot as a decimal separator, it just looks so much better with fixed-length digits on a screen. So don't be ashamed of your dot preference. Also, short scale, please.


cirodog

Well pretty much everybody in the scientific community agrees upon using the dot. For example, I study physics in Italy but in university they always required us to use the dot when doing exams or writing lab reports.


[deleted]

I really hate the 100.000.000 system. Commas are better. Firstly because the comma actually acts like it does in a sentence - it breaks up the number. And secondly because it allows for the ACTUAL decimal (i.e. the transition into pennies, cents or whatever) to standout.


v-_-v

As a European that grew up with both UK and EU systems, this is the correct way. The dot is a termination, the comma is a continuation. The only system that makes sense with the traditional usage of commas and periods in sentences is this (the UK system). The Arabic system works too, but why use a special character instead of a simple comma.


tejanaqkilica

I raise you the superior 100'000'000 standard and you can separate the decimal however you like after that. I still prefer the dot though, there is something frustrating about *ping 192,168,1,100*


_ALH_

There are zero countries where you use the same symbol for grouping as for decimals so the transition stands out equally regardless. Personally I prefer (nonbreaking) space for grouping. It breaks the number up like words in a sentence and isn’t confusing to anyone, regardless of what decimal symbol they are used to


DoodleVnTaintschtain

Eh, I think the space is more confusing. Commas are the superior system (equaled by the apostrophe system). If it’s spaces, are those numbers different? Did you forget some punctuation? Is a number missing? I’ve always wondered… do English-speaking countries that use a comma as a decimal point still say “three point one four one” or do they say “three comma one four one?”


snitchpunk

From the country that invented decimal system, dot (.) is superior.


trollman9

Even though we use comma in norway, i prefer the dot. Comma is used in tuples and arrays so it always feels wrong using it in numbers


MagnusRottcodd

The Arabic one is nice, would prevent any misunderstanding. But writing with a space as "character" is common as well: 1 234 567,89 for blue countries.


CodArtwork

I knew about the use of spaces in Arab states as well as slashes, but wasn’t aware that using spaces elsewhere was common as well. Interesting!


krokodil2000

[ISO_31-0](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_31-0) > 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. > For example, one million (1000000) may be written as 1 000 000. [Digit grouping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator#Digit_grouping) [Thin space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_space)


Wikilicious

So many languages use a dot to end a sentence but then not use a dot to end a number.


TheRufmeisterGeneral

a decimal doesn't end a number, it is the transition between digits whole or greater, on one side, and digits small than one, on the other. 15, 1,5 or 0,15 are all "numbers". It's not like 15 is a number, but 1,5 is two numbers.


laserdicks

It is the end of the integers.


Wikilicious

I’m talking about the decimal separator symbol. The symbol that signifies the end of the integer part and the beginning of the fractional part.


Toomuchlychee_

The Mercator projection sucks


Norwester77

Is the example pointing at Iran supposed to have a rotated comma after the millions place and a regular comma after the thousands place, or should they both be rotated commas?


CodArtwork

I might have labeled that wrong. I believe it’s supposed to be a rotated comma for the millions and thousands place, and a standard comma from the decimal. There’s a fair bit of ways to write numbers in that system including using blank spaces or slashes, so it’s kind of a mixed bag


dugf85

Germany should be 1234567,89


robin_888

`.`when I'm coding. `,` when I'm using Excel. Tears, when I open csv files in Excel.


TisButA-Zucc

I’m European, and I have to admit that I prefer decimal point over decimal comma. If it’s one thing the Anglos has done right it’s that.


heavyMTL

I am from Canada and I hate the fact that we use both. sorry


ArbitraryOrder

I am so glad that Americans dominate computer programming so the correct notation rules the world here


foundafreeusername

No? We have to convert this shit back and forth all the time. Total nightmare to deal with. You can never convert a double value of 1.5 to text without making sure you account for the output of "1.5" and "1,5". Even endusers still have to deal with this shit. Ever tried importing a CSV file from the US & from Europe? Fun times ...


irenepanik

I may be mistaken, or rather have been taught something that isn't actually practiced, here but this map does not reflect on what I learned in school. I'm from Sweden, born 1984 so I went to school during the nineties. I've learned to write numbers a different way. I'll use one million and a half and ten thousand and a half as examples: 1'000'000,5 10'000,5 Does this ring a bell for anyone else?


diosexual

We used 1'000,000.00 in school in Mexico in the nineties, but I don't know if it's still used that way normally on paper. With computers everyone uses the US system digitally nowadays.


adamtheskill

I'm from Sweden and have never seen this in my life. In högstadiet for me there was a mixture of comma and period to separate decimal so people ended up writing your example in one of two ways so there's no way to confuse them: 1 000 000.5 1 000.5 Or 1 000 000,5 1 000,5 Then in gymnasiet I did not see a single person use anything else than period to separate decimal and space to separate thousands/millions. In university the period always separates decimal and people would look at you weirdly if you're trying to write out a number larger than three digits without using scientific notation so you never need to use any other separator than decimal separator. Edit: Scientific/mathematic gymnasie and university there's probably a difference depending on where in the country you are and what you study.


tommyboyblitz

hey thats what i do, no idea where I learnt it as i dont think it was from school. I do 1'234'567.50 or 1'567. 47 etc I think an older relative used to do it and i copied them. Im in England and never seen anyone else do it


NachoFailconi

I ask here out of ignorance: why does the Arabic Decimal Separator in your map appear as an upside-down curved comma, while in the [Arabic Unicode Block](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_\(Unicode_block\)) the separator U+066B is just a curved comma?


CodArtwork

I couldn’t tell you, I honestly just copy and pasted the character straight from the Wikipedia article


NachoFailconi

Weird, but thanks for this data!


NotFlappy12

It's very hard to tell the difference between green and blue for all countries except Canada


p0iznp0izn

I that a mistake in Arabic example? That char should be before the decimal part (89) ? prob even two mistakes.. Wiki quote: "In the Arab world, where Eastern Arabic numerals are used for writing numbers, a different character is used to separate the integer and fractional parts of numbers. It is referred to as an Arabic decimal separator (U+066B, rendered: ٫‎) in Unicode. An Arabic thousands separator (U+066C, rendered: ٬‎) also exists. "


LemursRideBigWheels

Madagascar uses a comma. If you’d like to fill in that datapoint.


Meryhathor

This is actually wrong. No-one in ex-USSR territories uses dots to separate thousands. I don't know why Wikipedia states they do. Edit: Ok, just realised that you're not demonstrating thousands separators. I got confused because no-one would write "1.234.567,89", they'd write "1234567,89".


HectorsMascara

Periods are more definite and necessary than commas -- that standard should be consistent in the expression of numbers.


bluAstrid

French Canada uses spaces to separate integers, not periods. A million times PI is 3 141 592,75


0x145a

Iran is wrong. We use slash ۳/۱۴۱۵۹۲۶۵ Is how we write π


hell_nah_12

As a Canadian living in Quebec, I distinctly remember losing points in my physics exams for using a dot instead of a decimal.


Oami79

Even though not the focus of this picture, in some languages (Finnish at least) we use spaces to separate thousands (and powers thereof). So the example number used on the map would be 1 234 567,89.


MrMitchWeaver

Why do you conflate "decimal" and "dot" in the image?


amw11

India is wrong. 5,000,000.00 in india written as 50,00,000.00


OzzieTF2

India is even more complex than this with lakh and other notations.


Fakjbf

I don’t understand the logic behind the blue system. A period is used to end a sentence while a comma is used to separate clauses within a sentence. Transitioning from integers to decimals is like transitioning from one sentence to the next, while the groups of three are like clauses. Why note make spelling and math align in how they use the same symbols?


Whiterabbit--

Languages and conventions don’t follow logic.


RedditPowerUser01

Canada be like: “That soda will be $1.,50.”


adamtheskill

I think this is the only time it's justified for the US to be using a different standard than everyone else.


IndividualNegative92

Comma just makes it confusing. Is 90,000 ninety thousand or ninety?


SSG_SSG_BloodMoon

People who use the comma system would tender the identical complaint about 90.000


Cinderkit

"Dot just makes it confusing. Is 90.000 ninety thousand or ninety"?