• itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 months ago

    Yet another American convention that makes no damn sense

    “Hmm yes, I am going to buy that ice cream for dollar one”

    • TrousersMcPants@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It’s a convention for writing checks. If the dollar amount on a check read “300.00$” there’s nothing stopping me from writing “1300.00$” on there. But if you put “$300.00” that number is enclosed on both sides and there is no chance of being able to modify it (without significantly more effort that can be much more easily noticed)

    • qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website
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      2 months ago

      I dunno, seems reasonable to me in the same way that Spanish using “¿” at the beginning of a question makes sense.

      That it’s inconsistent with other units is certainly annoying, but if anything I think it’s the more sensible way.