# Why do some Europeans use a comma instead of a decimal point? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 19, 2006, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-europeans-use-a-comma-instead-of-a-decimal-point/361267 "2006-06-19T06:42:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-europeans-use-a-comma-instead-of-a-decimal-point/361267/21 "2006-06-20T05:02:58Z")
> [@groman](#): > > It looks retarded and even sovient made calculators used the **decimal point** as far as I remember. Huh, you’re right. Calculators always use the decimal point rather than the comma. I’ve never even thought about that before. ---
**Author:** ![mks57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-europeans-use-a-comma-instead-of-a-decimal-point/361267/22 "2006-06-20T05:19:30Z")
> [@Priceguy](#): > > Huh, you’re right. Calculators always use the decimal point rather than the comma. I’ve never even thought about that before. Not all of them. On many Hewlett-Packard calculators, it is a user-configurable setting. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-europeans-use-a-comma-instead-of-a-decimal-point/361267/23 "2006-06-20T10:59:21Z")
> [@groman](#): > > Bah, I grew up in Russia with the whole 10.000.000,00 nonsense and it never made sense to me. It looks retarded and even sovient made calculators used the **decimal point** as far as I remember. This whole comma business is confusing because it’s exactly opposite of how commas and periods are used in language. You use commas to link two or more similar things be it a list, or several clauses. You use periods to delimit complete thoughts. 10,000,000.00, has two very distinct mathematical parts 10,000,000 and 0.00 and a couple of logical parts that’s convinient to use punctuation to separate (10, 000, 000). I’ve gotten in trouble at school for using decimal points instead of commas too many times to count. When I was in 6th grade it got so bad that my parents decided to go through my homework and “fix” all my decimals because they just didn’t want to argue anymore. > DECIMAL POINT POWER! _raised fist_ > > 🆒 You do know that your comparison between commas and periods in numbers and in language is so invalid it’s painful, right? I don’t know about Russian calculators, and my google-fu is not strong enough to find any online, but in Norway calculators use the decimal points because they’re not produced here. My Norwegian standard keyboard on the other hand has a comma on the num-pad for entering the decimal separator, and the windows calulator has a comma as well. Calculators also use the ÷ sign, while my keypad and the windows calculator use a slash. Funnily enough, the slash isn’t used when writing a division on one line, for that we use a colon. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-europeans-use-a-comma-instead-of-a-decimal-point/361267/24 "2006-06-20T11:49:16Z")
> [@CynicalGabe](#): > > The same reason some loonies insist on writing calibre when they mean caliber. 😉 You mean the entire British Commonwealth? 😃 Except Canada… they seem to use both interchangeably ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-europeans-use-a-comma-instead-of-a-decimal-point/361267/25 "2006-06-20T12:43:36Z")
> [@Rayne Man](#): > > It’s not just Australians. I bet most people in the UK would call that thing on their roof a “TV aerial” and not “TV antenna”. > > On a message board I subscribe to that deals with radio and TV it’s surprising how many people spell it “Ariel”. So when they complain that they cannot receive a decent signal with their ariel , back comes the reply " try changing to Persil instead". But strangely, the BBC’s in-house magazine is called _Ariel_. Ostensibly it is named after the character in _The Tempest_ (“the spirit of the air”, and thus the essence of broadcasting, or something), but I have a sneaking suspicion that this explantion was made up after the fact to cover up a monumental cock-up. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-europeans-use-a-comma-instead-of-a-decimal-point/361267/26 "2006-06-20T13:24:00Z")
> [@Martini Enfield](#): > > You mean the entire British Commonwealth? 😃 > > Except Canada… they seem to use both interchangeably That brings another whole set of problems. I spent many years as a technical writer, and when we wrote a book using British (meaning “non-US”–sorry **Martini** and other Commonwealth residents, but this is how such spellings were known in our office) spellings, the Americans claimed we spelled words wrong. When we used American spellings, the rest of the Commonwealth claimed we were wrong. We couldn’t win! IOW, we use them interchangeably because we have to if we expect to deal with the USA, our closest neighbour (neighbor?); and the rest of the English-speaking world. Your “calibre/caliber” is a good example; both versions look correct to me. To address the OP, sort of… I recall one teacher I had back in the 1970s who claimed that some new (at the time) standard or convention stated that numbers were supposed to be written _without_ commas, but with decimal points if required. Thus, one million would be written: 1 000 000.00 Was there such a standard or convention? If so, where did it come from? Or was the teacher trying to enforce a stylistic preference? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-europeans-use-a-comma-instead-of-a-decimal-point/361267/27 "2006-06-20T13:37:46Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > I recall one teacher I had back in the 1970s who claimed that some new (at the time) standard or convention stated that numbers were supposed to be written _without_ commas, but with decimal points if required. Thus, one million would be written: > > 1 000 000.00 > > Was there such a standard or convention? If so, where did it come from? Or was the teacher trying to enforce a stylistic preference? I believe that’s the S.I. (metric) standard. ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-europeans-use-a-comma-instead-of-a-decimal-point/361267/28 "2006-06-20T16:24:30Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > I spent many years as a technical writer, and when we wrote a book using British (meaning “non-US”- So you laboured very hard at this job? Methinks this experience may have coloured your perceptions. ---
**Author:** ![kellner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c2a13f/32.png) [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-europeans-use-a-comma-instead-of-a-decimal-point/361267/29 "2006-06-20T16:44:12Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > To address the OP, sort of… I recall one teacher I had back in the 1970s who claimed that some new (at the time) standard or convention stated that numbers were supposed to be written _without_ commas, but with decimal points if required. Thus, one million would be written: > > 1 000 000.00 > > Was there such a standard or convention? If so, where did it come from? Or was the teacher trying to enforce a stylistic preference? I don’t know whether that’s an international standard, but that’s how it is usually done in Germany today - just with a comma. Germany is a decimal-comma country, but in some contexts with strong international influences the decimal point is common. Generally speaking the comma dominates in financial and non-technical office contexts but the point is found in many technical contexts (programming languages are an obvious example.) Although it is always called a comma, in writing you encounter both on a regular basis. Using the other one as a separator is just to likely to cause confusion. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-europeans-use-a-comma-instead-of-a-decimal-point/361267/30 "2006-06-20T16:47:40Z")
> [@slaphead](#): > > Yep, it’s just one of those things. Specifically, it’s one of those (many) things that makes Excel break out in a fit of explosive diaorrhea. > In many european countries, 10,123.89 is written 10.213,89. It’s ALWAYS written like this. Excel set up for Germany or wherever will format the numbers like this by default, because it’s how it’s ALWAYS done in that country. > But what happens when a german sends a spreadsheet to a brit or a yank? Why, of course it goes “aha! this must be text, because numbers would NEVER be formatted like that. Under no circumstances will I EVER let you turn this text into numbers without a manual search and replace”. Worthless shitty application. I’m not a cheerleader for Excel, but it can format the separators any way you please. Just go to Tools…Options and in the International tab you can convert from one system to the other. As far as dates- I agree that yyyy/mm/dd is the only logical way to do it. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-europeans-use-a-comma-instead-of-a-decimal-point/361267/31 "2006-06-20T23:13:09Z")
> [@CynicalGabe](#): > > So you laboured very hard at this job? Methinks this experience may have coloured your perceptions. Not sure if I’m being whooshed here, but yes–I labored hard at this job. It’s been rumored that it has colored my perceptions, but I feel pretty well centered. At any rate, I harbor no ill will against anybody who claimed to find a spelling error. No client ever canceled a contract, and so I collected a nice paycheck at the end of the day. Now, want me to do it in British English? 😃 Part of my job for a few clients required the ability to flip back and forth just as quickly. Oh, and thanks, **acsenray** , for the answer to my comma-less number question. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-europeans-use-a-comma-instead-of-a-decimal-point/361267.md?page=1)