For several reasons, we in the USA have some trouble writing
prices according to sensible tradition, or even logically.
I have seen the dollar sign in almost every conceivable
typographical location, including (once) a small handwritten
subscripted suffix.

When someone asked why the dollar sign is a prefix, I had to
think; it prevents forgers from adding digits to the left of
the amount; think handwritten documents.

I expect that customary usage will have us write the $ as a
suffix in some future decades, or a century or so.

Redundancy in text will have interesting consequences when
text-to-speech becomes more common in computers, and
"$15 million dollars" comes out of the loudspeakers with a
duplication.

I have seen a large can (maybe a half gallon?) of simple,
non-gourmet food priced at $579 in a local supermarket...

However, one of the more-distressing (and extremely-common)
misunderstandings is a price such as ".79¢" (¢ = cents
symbol, just in case :).

Legally, I'm told, this really is 79/100 of a cent, and some
day I might just lay a penny on the counter and walk out with
one item.

I finally had a chance to discuss this with a man who said it
is OK; when confronted with the illogic of it, he finally
concluded that the decimal point is to be interpreted
differently for prices; maybe decorative?

The very popular Web site Slashdot (the name's a pun; say
"http://slashdot.com" aloud; / is"slash", and . is "dot")
is a haven of the subliterate; among them are a goodly number
who probably have never written nor typed the likes of "25%".

However, Web file names (which they do read) can use a %
prefix ("escape code") for certain characters that would
otherwise confound the parsers, so you might see something
like "%20" embedded into a filename at times. The poor souls
at /. think that is the proper way to use a % sign, so while
they write "24$", they also write "%50" to mean one-half.
Quite unsettling, unless one lives in Lewis Carroll land.

I do hope I'm not too much of a sourpuss and off-topic.
Next post will be more on-topic....

Nicholas Bodley ||@|| Waltham, Mass.
Why use Opera? http://tntluoma.com/opera/lover/
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The Cordingley Dam in Newton Lower Falls, Mass., was paid for
by the Cordingley family, but the sign telling you what it is
(a big, long, costly routed-and-painted rustic log)
misspelled the family name as "Cordingly".