schoolhouse rock

[Joshi]

Originally posted by Alien426

Just because a lot of people use your method and you'd have to familiarize yourself with the other method, doesn't mean shit. I was saying that the decimal is more important. The thousands separator merely helps to visualize the number. So the more important part should be better identifiable.

 

Maths are the foundations of just about everything and technically shouldn't change by region. 2 plus 2 should be 4 in every country, and therefore, people should always use the same symbols for the same things everywhere, lest people get confused. Not only in my country, but all over the world, apart from in some countries, people do this. With Maths being so important, I feel it wrong that some countries feel that they should be different, just to annoy everyone else.

 

And what exactly makes the decimal more important than any other number?

[edlib]

Originally posted by Joshi

With Maths being so important, I feel it wrong that some countries feel that they should be different, just to annoy everyone else.

Heh heh,.. that reminds me of that ridiculously expensive space probe that smacked into the surface of some planet (Mars, maybe?..) because one team was in English units, and the other was in Metric.

Dumbasses.

America should be metric by now. Almost (see above) the entire scientific and engineering communities are Metric, and so is the rest of the planet for the most part, but we insist on using an archaic and abitrary measurement system handed down to us by a Motherland that has since switched over to the new, carefully planned system.

 

Must be because it's French.

[Skinkie]

The important thing to mention is that with most people's handwriting, whether they make a . or a , it pretty much looks the same. Sloppy handwriting will be the death of us all.

[Alien426]

Originally posted by Joshi

And what exactly makes the decimal more important than any other number?

OK, I'll give you 100 $. Whoops, I mean 1.00 $.

 

1.00 $ 1,00 $

1.00 $ 1,00 $

1.00 $ 1,00 $

1.00 $ 1,00 $

1.00 $ 1,00 $

1.00 $ 1,00 $

1.00 $ 1,00 $

1.00 $ 1,00 $

[RicardoLuigi...]

it should be $1.00...

 

but that comma thing is confusing. like joshi said, it's called a decimal...and therefore isn't it only common sense to use a decimal point?

 

and as for sloppy handwriting...this is what my handwriting looks like:

 

 

some people call it girly...i call it neat. (as for the paragraph at the bottom that talks about a post, i had posted this somewhere else, but i'm not gonna bother w/it here).

[Joshi]

No, it's girly, you need mean sloppy doctor handwriting.

 

Originally posted by Alien426

OK, I'll give you 100 $. Whoops, I mean 1.00 $.

 

1.00 $ 1,00 $

1.00 $ 1,00 $

1.00 $ 1,00 $

1.00 $ 1,00 $

1.00 $ 1,00 $

1.00 $ 1,00 $

1.00 $ 1,00 $

1.00 $ 1,00 $

 

You need to explain more clearly what you're trying to say considering we're talking about confusion here. First of all, grammar, currency signs are usually put before the amount, so it would be (for americans) $100, not 100$. Secondly, whether you're saying one dollar, or one hundred dollars, the comma would never go after just two zero's, always three, hence the thousand seperator.

 

secondly, you never actually explained why the decimal's are more important than any other number. as i've said before, most opf the world seems to use the method I descibed above and most of the world seems to do pretty well with it. The indians use it and they hold some of the best mathematical minds in the world. I don't see where you find confusion.

 

Oh, and don't get me started on the metric system. i was brought up on that, it's second nature to me, I don't see why people still have to use old methods though. Okay, fine, so it's hard to kick a habit, but I'm always known myself to be 1 metre and a load of centimetre's high, feet and inches are just, to me, annoying, they go in intervals of 16 little ones to an inch, and then 12 inches toa foot and then so on and so fourth. 10 millimeters to a centimeter 100 centimeters to a meter, 1000 meters to a killometer, each divisible by 10, easy.

[DrMcCoy]

Originally posted by Joshi

Okay, it's simply common sense not to mention a saviour of lots of confusion to put commas in with big numbers (1,000,000) and decimal points in with decimal numbers (3.1415927).

 

[...]

 

Now when you start intermingling decimals and commas, but in the wrong order, you get up to ****'s creek. Take Moles example, 1.452.098,2971.

 

you've never been in germany, right? there it's "common sense" to use a '.' as a seperator for thousands and a ',' for the decimals... (and it's the same in other european countries, afaik)

[RicardoLuigi...]

yeah. they do that in france as well. like if you want to say one million two hundred thousand and two fifths, it would be:

 

1.200.000,4

 

instead of, in america, canada, england:

 

1,200,000.4

 

 

it just looks goofy.

[Alien426]

Originally posted by Joshi

You need to explain more clearly what you're trying to say considering we're talking about confusion here. First of all, grammar, currency signs are usually put before the amount, so it would be (for americans) $100, not 100$. Secondly, whether you're saying one dollar, or one hundred dollars, the comma would never go after just two zero's, always three, hence the thousand seperator.

I was trying to illustrate how easy it is to overlook the dot. Both fade in in the same way, but you recognize the comma much earlier while the dot could actually be just a speck.

 

I'll write the value and sign in the same way that I would say them.

 

Originally posted by Joshi

secondly, you never actually explained why the decimal's are more important than any other number.

I wasn't saying that. They are more important than the fricken thousand separators. For the last time, decimal indicators change the value, thousands separators enhance the readability.

 

Originally posted by Joshi

most opf the world seems to use the method I descibed above

We're not discussing what the majority does (remember the browser argument?). We're talking about common sense. What would be the better system?

[RicardoLuigi...]

I wasn't saying that. They are more important than the fricken thousand separators. For the last time, decimal indicators change the value, thousands separators enhance the readability.

 

well...isn't it logical to put a decimal point where a decimal begins? and the thousands separators enhance readability of the number, like you say...doesn't it make sense to use something that enhances other things, like sentences?

[Alien426]

Originally posted by Das Mole

but that comma thing is confusing. like joshi said, it's called a decimal...and therefore isn't it only common sense to use a decimal point?

...

well...isn't it logical to put a decimal point where a decimal begins?

Nomenclature, nothing more. If I called the comma a decimal comma would it make more sense to you?

 

Originally posted by Das Mole

and the thousands separators enhance readability of the number, like you say...doesn't it make sense to use something that enhances other things, like sentences?

If you had read my previous post, you should have asked "doesn't it make sense to change the comma and dots in sentences, too?". Then again, since normally new sentences start with a capital letter the visual enhancement by a bigger punctuation mark wouldn't be necessary.

[RicardoLuigi...]

Nomenclature, nothing more. If I called the comma a decimal comma would it make more sense to you?

 

but that's not the case. it's not called a decimal comma, now is it? no. it's called the decimal point. and that's just how it is. and it's not like it doesn't make sense to me...i don't know where you got that impression.

 

If you had read my previous post, you should have asked "doesn't it make sense to change the comma and dots in sentences, too?".

 

why should i have asked that? if the comma/dot thing was to be changed around, i wouldn't have it be completely reversed in sentences as well, i'd just leave it alone instead.

 

Then again, since normally new sentences start with a capital letter the visual enhancement by a bigger punctuation mark wouldn't be necessary.

 

so what are you saying? don't even bother with a period (or a comma, if it were to be changed) at the end of a sentence? that's kinda dumb.

 

*OFF TOPIC...ALTHOUGH THIS IS THE RANDOM DISCUSSION...*

 

THIS IS POST #1500 FOR ME!!

*da da da da da da da*---> (sung to the tune of that song they played on "match game".

 

:sheepdanc

[Alien426]

Originally posted by Das Mole

so what are you saying? don't even bother with a period (or a comma, if it were to be changed) at the end of a sentence? that's kinda dumb.

That's kinda not what I meant at all.

 

See what Wikipedia has to say.

 

Originally posted by Das Mole

why should i have asked that? if the comma/dot thing was to be changed around, i wouldn't have it be completely reversed in sentences as well, i'd just leave it alone instead

Are you following me at all?

 

Enhance readability -> less important -> dot

Change meaning -> important -> comma

 

You said I should use "something that enhances other things, like sentences" - a comma - to divide integer and decimal. So, by your own rationale when I vote to use bigger commas for the more important separator, that would mean exactly what I told you: to change commas and dots in sentences. It seems weird to me, too. So I reflected on whether the end-sentence sign needed to be big, which I concluded it did not. So in sentences it would not mean to change the separators. One reason is that the end of a sentence is also defined by the new sentence's upper case letter or its non-existence. The other reason is that maybe commas (in their traditional role) are more important than end-sentence signs.

[RicardoLuigi...]

oh. well, the way i see it commas are the marks that enhance readability. as for periods changing the meaning, though..that wouldn't be right. but either way...i think commas are the "enhancers", seeing that you put them into to tell people to take a breath and things, or to add in an extra piece of information that isn't necessary to include in the sentence, making them less important. periods/dots/points/whatever, in my opinion, are more important, because they tell you when to stop the sentence, etc. plus, if we didn't have the dots at the ends of the sentences, and someone didn't type in capitals (such as myself, or ray), it would be very confusing. an example would be some newbies that come occasionally and write in one thing that looks like a super-long sentence, when actually it's supposed to be three, or however many. so the way i see it, dots are more important because they separate the different thoughts and pieces of thoughts.

 

but that's just me.

 

anyway...i say it makes more sense to use commas in the large number and use the dot to separate the decimal from the integer.

[Joshi]

Alien. First of all, I now understand exactly what you mean and can now look at it from your point of view (thank you).

 

Basically, you're saying that thousand seperators aren't always used, only for readability purposes (so a computer will read 1000000 bits and wouldn't need a thousand seperator as it's primary function is math, but would always need a decimal indicator where one is required, otherwise you get a completely different number).

 

Fine, so that comma is more recognisable yes, I agree with that.

 

well first of all, you have to think about how people write thing. My decimals actually come along in the centre of a line, as apose to the bottom of it (·). This is hard to do on a computer, but it usually done all the time in writing because people use the actual . to abbreviate the multiplication sign (advance mathematics comes into this again, it's much easier to work with long algebraic formula when you work this way, X just becomes too messy and can be mistaken for the variable x).

 

So to change the thousand seperator and decimal indicator, you would have 1·000·000,7436284

 

I can see how this may be slightly better as you see the decimal point more clearly, but you have to remember, the decimal point being where it is, it is a lot easier to see as say a comma which just sits at the bottom of a line (on lined paper, it would be harder to see than the dot). But I can see how your's may be better.

[RicardoLuigi...]

but then couldn't the decimal be mistaken for the multiplication sign, like you said?

 

well, actually, i guess not. b/c of the context of things. but what if you're doing an algebra problem, or even a simpler problem that just had a decimal in it?

 

this whole thing is just plain confusing. why can't everyone just use the same methods?

[Alia]

Originally posted by Das Mole

You misspelt the word "period".

 

(Try finding a grammatical or even a spelling error in this post)

 

The period belonging to the first sentence should be within the quotation marks, nestled close to its name.

 

The second period is missing from its rightful domain between the T and the parenthesis. Where could it be?

[Alien426]

Originally posted by Alia

The period belonging to the first sentence should be within the quotation marks, nestled close to its name.

False.

Originally posted by Alia

The second period is missing from its rightful domain between the T and the parenthesis.

True.

 

Alien is growing tired of this thread and his own rants.

[Alia]

As Das seems to believe in American usage, he should follow American usage.

[RicardoLuigi...]

 

The period belonging to the first sentence should be within the quotation marks, nestled close to its name.

 

 

Damn you, you're good.

 

And as for the parentheses having no period, that doesn't make any sense to have a period in there, because it's not meant to be a sentence, just an extraneous thought.

 

...Just leave me alone.

[DrMcCoy]

Originally posted by Alia

The period belonging to the first sentence should be within the quotation marks, nestled close to its name.

 

NO!

he was talking about a "period" and not about a "period."...

(maybe it's even better to use the '-sign, because "s are used to indicate direct speech... so it would be 'period'...)

[RicardoLuigi...]

Mm...I think the regular quotation marks (") should be used, because...it should just be that way. It looks normal that way.

 

P.S.- It's fun to use capitals!

[DrMcCoy]

'normal'... you're just got used to it and that doesn't mean it's logical...

[RicardoLuigi...]

Actually, it does make more sense to use the " mark, because the ' mark is only for within a quote, such as if someone was saying something inside a quote. I would never use the ' mark except for that purpose. Plus, which one looks nicer?

 

"normal"

or

'normal'

 

The first one. So use it instead.

[DrMcCoy]

i don't know... i usually use ", too but... well, i don't know what would be more logical...

...

screw it, i'll stick with "