Morning folks... Reg, we ended up playing it safe and used "...sales of approximately 8 billion Euro...". Now I'm wondering whether I was right to capitalise the word Euro... Thanks again for everyone's input. Regards, Erica. "Reginald Hardman" <cleardoc@xxxxxxxxx> To: "austechwriter list" <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent by: cc: austechwriter-bounce@fr Subject: atw: Re: use of the ? symbol eelists.org 17/06/2004 01:31 AM Please respond to austechwriter Salut Michael, You are absolutely right, the currency symbol should never be used in the context you give below. Curiously, the 1981 version of ISO 1000 does allow "80 M$, even 10e6 USD" and other variants derived from standard SI unit notation, all of which I would not use for fear of inflicting severe dyspepsia. As a follow-up, I looked at some web sites of EU countries whose currency symbols prior to 2001 were placed before the numbers. An Irish website (for hotel bookings) gave prices as, for example=20 "euros =80 150.00", having an each way bet on whether the reader can display the euro symbol. So much for my advice Erica, which seems to have been franco-centric. It appears that in countries where the old currency symbol came before the numbers, so does the euro symbol. A country's government can choose not to accept the ISO as a primary standard, after all. For an international readership, and where the material originated in a country where the symbol is put after the numbers, I would still put it after the numbers (but never in the context in Michael's remarks). How confusing could it be, anyway? As always, take into account the 3 factors affecting how you express anything. They are, in order of priority, audience, audience, audience. BTW in a world where I am constantly emailed prices for pirated software, medicine for organ modification and everything else, I found it quite difficult to quickly find a website in languages I read, with written prices, curious. Reg > Reg speaks (sorry, writes) sooth. (G'day, Reg!) But I do think the > distinction between the "local" symbols ($, =A3, =A5, etc) and the SI sym = bols > (USD, UKP, JPY) is worth observing. Most readers would be quite > bewildered > to encounter something like "80 million $", but "80 million USD" > shouldn't > give anyone much dyspepsia. >=20 > Michael Lewis >=20 > -------------------------------------- > Brandle Pty Limited, Sydney, Australia > http://www.brandle.com.au > -------------------------------------- >=20 > ************************************************** > To post a message to austechwriter, send the message to > austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx >=20 > To subscribe to austechwriter, send a message to > austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "subscribe" in the Subject > field. >=20 > To unsubscribe, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > with "unsubscribe" in the Subject field. >=20 > To search the austechwriter archives, go to > www.freelists.org/archives/austechwriter >=20 > To contact the list administrator, send a message to > austechwriter-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > ************************************************** >=20 >=20 =0D =0D --=0D R=E9ginald Hardman=0D R=E9dacteur Technique=0D Paris, France =0D =0D Reginald Hardman=0D Technical writer=0D Paris, France ************************************************** To post a message to austechwriter, send the message to austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx To subscribe to austechwriter, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "subscribe" in the Subject field. 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