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From: Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: Datasheet-flation?
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2024 16:32:14 -0700
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On 11/23/2024 3:02 PM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
> Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:
> 
>> Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
>>> The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
>>> (note carefully the position of the comma separator)
>>
>> In my country people would ask why are you putting decimal
>> comma in a number that is supposed to be an integer?
> 
> It's a convention used in banking and accountancy to divide the '0's
> into groups of three and make them easier to count with less chance of
> error.  It is also used by newspapers and sometimes in ordinary
> correspondence but very rarely in scientific communications, where the
> 10^x notation is preferred.  The decimal divider in English is the
> full-stop [American: "period"]

The thousands separator is "locale specific" (and, as I outlined,
elsewhere, often has exceptions).  Commas, spaces, dots, underscores
and apostrophes are used.  With typeset documents, often a
THIN SPACE (U+2009 ) is used to keep the digit groups close together
(where a real space would tend to separate them) yet allow the
eye to easily note the groupings.

Numerics are never "broken" across line (or PAGE!  Gasp!) breaks
whereas a comma, for example, used to separate a clause would
be welcomed in such a place.

> Also be aware that the term "Billion" means a million million
> (Bi-million) in English but only a thousand million in American and
> French..  Most English people seem ignorant of this and use it
> incorrectly with the American meaning.

Yeah, first time in the UK we had several misunderstandings
about that!  (along with things like life ASSURANCE, vacumn,
"way out", etc.)

Amusing to ALMOST share a common language!  :>