Why $ appears on the left side of value? (was: Re: BIDI percentage sign)

[Philippe Verdy]

2015-02-27 22:29 GMT+01:00 Shervin Afshar <shervinafshar at gmail.com>:

> As far as common knowledge goes[1], this is purely a matter of convention.
>
> But in some banking contexts, I've seen currency values written as follwos:
>
> $200 USD...
>
$200 CAD
> $200 AUD
> 200$00 CVE
> €200 EUR
> ₪200 ILS
>

And just in English... This inversion is not used in most other languages.

So why could'nt that be also a question of convention for noting percents
(or perthousands) ?

The notation of numbers with numeric figures does not abey the same rules
as the natural language or its script. It is already the case for Arabic
numbers (whose digits are ordered left to right, with the left-most digits
being also pronounced first where numbers are spelled orally).

The percent symbol is also part of the numeric notation and I don't see why
it would not be ordered exactly like the digits, i.e. to the right, even if
it pronounced after the number. If one wants to write it the way it is
pronounced, the "%" symbol should not be used but the plain Arabic word.
Some writers may not follow this convention and will want to order the
symbol as if it was a natural word *detached* from the numeric figures.

Note that the percent symbol is normally also attached typographically to
the numeric figures.

If there's spacing, it is **not-breaking** (in French, the recommanded
spacing between the numeric figures and the percent symbol is a
non-breaking thin space, "espace fine insécable", best represented by NNBSP
in Unicode : U+203F, though many sites still use NBSP=U+00A0, even if it is
too large) or, by a "lazy" lame and non recommended way, no spacing at all,
which is only acceptable for use in very compact tables with many data
columns in order to fit the page without reducing font sizes (it will be
prefered before suppressing number group separators).


> My take on this is that, here redundancy is used to avoid ambiguity.
>
> [1]:
> http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/11326/what-is-the-difference-between-20-and-20
>
> ↪ Shervin
>
> On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 10:51 AM, Philippe Verdy <verdy_p at wanadoo.fr>
> wrote:
>
>> And why Mareicans are putting the currency unit symbol to the right ? It
>> is still read *after* the amount...
>> The only readon I see is to avoid adding an initial digit when the amount
>> is writen over a blank space. You can't add a digit after only because you
>> also add the decimal separator and subunits, or because you write these
>> subunits with a small fraction, or in superscript.. My feeling is that this
>> is a purely typographical tradition and it ia not related to the way you
>> read it loud.
>> For othe measurement units, the unit symbol is placed after the number,
>> not before. This has nothing to do with the Bidi ordering : that symbol
>> preserves its existing ordering even if you place it after or before by the
>> choice of the redactor and his perception of traditions. Number figures use
>> a different system than the rest of the text.
>>
>> 2015-02-27 19:14 GMT+01:00 James Lin <James_Lin at symantec.com>:
>>
>>> Hi
>>> I looked through the Unicode standard Annex #9 and unable to find out if
>>> percentage sign "%" should reside on the LEFT of the numeric character or
>>> RIGHT?
>>>
>>> My understanding is if the numeric is in Latin or Western Arabic number,
>>> 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0, "%" sign should be on the RIGHT: 12%, 54%;   For
>>> Eastern Arabic, "%" sign should be on the LEFT:  %٩٦٥
>>>
>>> Is this correct?
>>>
>>> Thank you
>>> -James
>>>
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>>
>>
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>
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