On Sat, 9 Aug 2003 18:40:35 -0400, John Cowan <cowan@...> wrote:

> Nicholas Bodley scripsit:
>
>> Nevertheless, I was astonished to see the name of a local Chinese
>> restaurant (Beijing Star, iirc) rendered horizontally RtoL. Just
>> one
>> more stage in casual self-education...
>
> Yes, they do that now and again. I used to think this could be
> interpreted as top-to-bottom style with columns of length 1, but
> that won't explain all the cases.

It is an interesting and unexpected explanation, though. We in the
electronics and computer fields run into related sorts of situations
now and then.

>
>> [ "20$" ]

> How could that be the explanation? 20$ could be changed to 120$,
> but then $20 could be changed to $200.

Partly my carelessness, but also I was assuming that either there
was no space to add a digit to the right, that it would be written
as "$20.00", or that an added digit would call attention to itself,
as in a column of figures. Nevertheless, you make a good and obvious
point.

> Several countries use the style "5$79"; I suggest that is probably
> what you saw.

Quite possible that the person who wrote/typed it came from such a
country.

This reminds me of the various ways of replacing the [.] as a decimal
point,
although I'm not sure of the reasons, other than that it's such a
small-area
glyph in many instances. I well recall the diazo blueline engineering
drawings
that replaced earlier blueprints. The originals eventually would gain
some dots,
usually small, often round, at random locations, along with other
stray marks.

It occurred to me that an unwanted dot could change a numerical value
(most
drawings were neatly hand-lettered) by adding a bogus decimal point,
and
electrical schematics could show a connection when none was wanted
where
lines crossed. (We had rules to avoid the latter.)

I first encountered an alternate notation in a professional-level
article on
astronomy, where an angle was given in a format something like "147d
23m 19s4"
That embedded "s", signifying seconds of arc, replaced "19.4s". The
"dotless"
notation is also more concise.

In electronics, following a sensible international custom, we are
learning to
write "4k7" for "4.7k"; "2.2" becomes "2r2", the "r" probably
signifying
"radix".

> hybrid. (But so is "television".) There is a legend that IBM
> engineers
> wanted to use the properly Latin form "sextidecimal", but couldn't
> get it past their own marketing department.

(^_^) (Asian right-side-up "smilie")

Intel now has a Pentium 4; the Pentium II could have been a
"Sextium", maybe;
my classical knowledge is weak.

CPU chip talk: "RU486?" "No, I'm a Pentium"

Best regards,

Nicholas Bodley |@| Waltham, Massachusetts
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