¢
Time was, that little cent symbol was on every typewriter keyboard. Is is still used nowadays, or has the plain “c” taken over? Or do people use, say 0.02 (or .02) instead? (I notice that nobody ever says “Just my 2¢” - it’s always “Just my $.02”.
Certainly it doesn’t seem to be used for euro cents, but is it still in use in the USA?
No, not that I’ve seen. I’ve wondered too. What we mostly see is this:
$0.50
Which I think is kind of unnecesary and extra work. But as I look, I don’t see the cents sign on my keyboard.
Whoa I feel out of it. Searching the keyboard made me dizzy. Wonder if I’m getting a cold.
I used it last month. I was giving my son some math problems to do and some of the amounts were less than a dollar. If I recall correctly, I searched via google for ‘cents’, copied the symbol from one of the results and pasted it into the document I was creating.
It’s not on the keyboard. There’s a code for it, which some Doper told me months ago and I’ve since forgotten (sorry!). It’d use it if it was on the keyboard. I first discovered it wasn’t when I was running a school and had to make a sign for the copier (copies 5 cents pay at the desk). I ended up, after a rather frustrating half hour, printing out “Copies 5c, pay at the desk” and inking in a | with a Sharpie. Tres unprofessional.
Just my two hundreths of a dollar.
It’s ALT+189, or ALT+0162.
¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
Like others have said, it would probably be used more if it were on the keyboard.
Just a slight hijack, it really strkes me as absurd when I see hand-lettered signs in the store indicating that items are priced at “.25¢”. Then they get upset with me when I try to buy four for a penny.
We’ve got IBM and programmers to thank for the disappearing cents symbol.
It used to be on a typewriter’s 6 key, but on computers, it’s a caret, which appareantly has more uses in programming than a symbol for pennies. Kind of a shame - they were able to find a use for the dollar sign, so why not the cents?
:: nods ::
I think that’s why the $0.25 convention came into use. It uses the dollar sign instead of the cent sign, looks more impressive, and the use of the leading zero before the decimal point ensures the the decimal point doesn’t get visually ‘lost’. It also matches other whole-dollar amounts in columns of figures.
The problem occurs because people almost always say ‘twenty-five cents’ when they read “$0.25”, instead of ‘zero point two five dollars’. So the Clueless Shopkeeper (probably the same one who uses “too many” quote’s and apostrophe’s in the wrong place’s, but thats another rant) thinks, “It’s less than a dollar, so I gotta use a decimal point, but tu’s twenty-five cents, so where do I put it?”. And then guesses.
Has anyone ever used this one:** `** ? (Underneath the ~)
I mean, I suppose if you’re typing a quote within dialogue, you ought to use it, but everyone seems to use ’ on both sides instead. Like this: “When I forgot how to make a cents sign, Colophon said ‘It’s ALT+189,’ but that gets me this little oddity instead: ╜”
I’d gladly give up the useless ` in exchange for a ¢.
(ALT+0162 works for me.)
I hadn’t even noticed that the ¢ sign was missing. How unobserant am I? I’d gladly give up the ` as well, particularly when people use it instead of the apostrophe.
You’d be surprised how many people don’t have any idea that $.25 is the same as 25¢.
I used to run the billing department for a company that leased and maintained copiers. On the contracts, the salespeople would usually write $.04 per copy. The invoices, however, read 4¢ per copy (it was a standard thing in the billing program that couldn’t be changed).
I got complaints *all the freakin’ time * from customers who thought they were being overcharged. I even had a little stock answer that I just copied and pasted into reply emails when someone would email me with the complaint. Even when I explained to them that 4¢ said out loud would be “four cents” and that $.04 equals four cents, they still didn’t get it. I even had one girl get all pissy, say “whatever” and hang up on me. It was like they thought I was just trying to confuse them so that they’d end up paying more than they’d agree to. [sub](and I’m a really polite, softspoken person with a degree in education, so I don’t think that I was coming off condescending or anything)[/sub]
Why, WhyNot, the ‘back tick’ is very useful!
I use it for…
…uh, and then there’s…
…and don’t forget the… um…
[sub]can I get back to you?[/sub]
The cents also disappeared around the same time that ½ and ¼ disappeared from the keyboard and we went back to 1/2 and 1/4.
Those are ALT+189 and ALT+188
It’s become mostly redundant in English now that systems work with ‘smart quotes’ (where they curl in the correct direction automatically). Except that they’re not always smart enough.
However, the -key is indispensible for entering foreign characters which use it as an accent: crtl+ followed by a, in most programs, gives à.
I have posted this link before (yes, it’s on my website) but here is a link for all those special characters:
http://www.1728.com/altchar.htm
Learn how to make those fractions ¼ ½ ¾ or those cent signs ¢
Programmers use it all the time.
command in a shell script runs command and puts the output in between the back-ticks.
In fact, now that I think about it: The standard keyboard is unlikely to ever lose any of the symbols that are currently on it for a long time because they’re all used in computer languages now. What they really should do is give us another shift-like key so they could triple up on all the keys. That would be really nice. They could put it where the CAPS lock is, which is the most useless key on the board. It actually hinders productivity because of how often it’s accidentally pressed.
If you’re on a Windows system -
Click on START. Go up to Accessories, and from there to System Tools. Click on Character Map, and it’ll give you all the codes you need.
¢¥ÐÆß
I didn’t even realize that the ¢ sign wasn’t on my keyboard until I looked for it. Bet there’s one on my typewriter, though.
I’d say it’s more likely inflation that’s the culprit. How many things are there these days that cost less than a dollar anyway?
But for the things that do, I think I see $.25 more often than $0.25.
With so many people not knowing how to use the apostrophe, there’s no reason to expect them to know how to use the cent sign.
I wish the cents symbol was on the keyboard. Hell, even ALT+189 don’t work! But at least ALT+0162 does.
¢
Aww yeah, that’ll cure my craving.
Is there anyway to make one of my keys be the ¢ key?