Xiaofan Chen wrote:

> That is strange. Which ISO standard? Or is it just an EN standard?

ISO 31-0. A short summary (from
http://www.ntnu.no/ntnu/old/glos/glos_nr.1_1995/stewart.html):

- Starting from, and on either side of, the decimal mark, digits should be
placed into groups of three. 
- The groups should be separated by a small space, never a comma or point.
[Helps avoid ambiguities; both 2.850 and 2,850 could be two thousand
something or two and something, but 2 850 is unlikely to be taken as not
being two thousand something.]
- The decimal sign is a comma on the line.
- In English language documents a point on the line is often used instead
of a comma, and this usage is acknowledged in the ISO 31 standard. [Refers
to plain language documents, not technical drawings.]
- The comma must never be used as the thousands mark. [See above about
ambiguities.]
- A million is written as '1 000 000' and a millionth as '0,000 001' or
'0.000 001' and so on.


> Another common confusion is caused when they pronounce "I" ([ai]) as
> [i:]. 

The problem is that there are /no/ rules of pronunciation in English.
Either you know how to pronounce a word, or you don't -- no way to figure
it out (like you can in Latin languages; there are clear pronunciation
rules for most combinations of letters). And even some native speakers only
/think/ they know, and then there's AE and BE and AuE and NZE and IE and ME
and ... (in no particular order), and each of them may use a pronunciation
of [ai] where another uses an [i:]  :)


> Which part of the world follow this continental European convention?

It's not "a part", it's a number of countries. Just have a look at the link
I provided: 

>> See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator

To me, it seems that Howard is on to something when he says "I think it's
basically UK and former colonies". Most others seem to use the comma.

> in Singapore 

AFAIK, former British colony.

> and China, 

Not quite a British colony, but it's first strong commercial contacts with
European culture were with the British -- again AFAIK. My knowledge of
Asian history is spotty...

> the same in US 

Former British colony. They still use "imperial" units in domestic trade :)

> and Japan. 

Not sure why there, but possibly that has its roots in the US occupation
after WW2? Or was it already like this before WW2? If so, possibly because
of the British domination of commerce with Europe in that region.

> India is also using ".",

Former British colony.

> so only the monority in the world is using ",".

Correct. It seems that's because only a minority in the world resisted the
British domination :)

BTW, it seems the British have abandoned their Commonwealth also in this
respect -- the new British standard for technical drawings (BS 8888) adopts
the decimal comma.


I don't know when and why the comma was adopted by ISO. My guess is that
this was because the main countries that are using the dot traditionally
don't (or didn't) value international standards much. As the "main
countries" I see China, India and the USA. Both China and India only
recently started to participate in international commerce, see the
importance of international standards and gain weight in shaping them, so
they may have not had a strong position (or cared much) by the time ISO
31-0 was created. The USA traditionally don't care much for international
standards -- neither in creating them nor in following them (which is a
precondition for their creation, of course) --, so their participation in
creating them often is not strong. Possibly a combination of factors like
these left the "dot side" without strong representation in ISO during the
creation of this standard.

I see one practical and one esthetic reason for the comma. The practical
one is that the dot is just too easy to vanish (or appear) in bad faxes and
copies; a comma is more substantial in print. The esthetic one is that I
like the dot as the end of a sentence, and not in the middle of a sentence,
as it appears when using numbers with decimal fractions (like currency
values) in sentences.

Gerhard
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