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April 17, 2006
A Mark, a Yen, a Buck or a Pound
In a comment to "the line is / Long and electric," reader brett asks:
why are your money units in '$' ???
As it's a good question, I'm promoting it to its own entry.
The reason for this is that what people in the United States call 'the dollar sign,' is actually used to indicate a monetary value in several currencies: the Argentine Peso, the Australian Dollar, the Bahama Dollar, the Barbados Dollar, the Belize Dollar, the Bermuda Dollar, the Bolivian Boliviano, the Brunei Darussalam Dollar, the Canadian Dollar, the Cayman Islands Dollar, the Chilean Peso, the East Caribbean Dollar, the Fiji Dollar, the Guyana Dollar, the Hong Kong Dollar, the Jamaican Dollar, the Liberian Dollar, the Mexican Peso, the Namibian Dollar, the New Zealand Dollar, the Singapore Dollar, the Solomon Island Dollar, the Surinam Dollar, the Trinidad and Tobago Dollar, the Tuvalu Dollar, the United States Dollar and the Zimbabwe Dollar.
The way these currencies are distinguished from each other is by a three-letter currency code. I will often use the word 'pesos' following a monitary amount in these listings, but the proper way to indicate Mexican Pesos is with the three letter code of 'MXN.'
It is also important to note that the dollar sign is the only safe character to use in email and usenet news; otherwise, it might get translated into garbage. To avoid that problem, one should use the ISO 4217 three-letter currency abbreviation.
Last but not least, if you need to convert between currencies, the currency converter at www.xe.com is pretty handy.
Posted by crispy at April 17, 2006 06:30 AM