[can.francais] Virgule de'cimale ou point de'cimal

jmlang@water.UUCP (07/16/87)

In article <1931@lsuc.UUCP> wales@CS.UCLA.EDU (Rich Wales) writes:
>
>No.  The period is, officially, still the proper decimal point in
>English-language documents in Canada.
>
Which raises the question: what about French-language documents?
I am quite sure that the comma is the proper decimal "point" but
that is a new thing: done at the reintroduction of the metric system.
(Incidental: I think I remember seeing that metric has been legal
in Canada since late 1800. Can somebody check?)

Also, something new in French Canada (a few years old < 5 ):
The dollar sign follows the amount as does most the currency symbol
in the world. So instead of $18,000,000.50 we now see
 18 000 000,50 $ in the newspapers.

Note the cross-posting and follow-ups to can.francais
-- 
Je'ro^me M. Lang	   ||    jmlang@water.bitnet        jmlang@water.uucp
Dept of Applied Math       ||			  jmlang%water@waterloo.csnet
U of Waterloo		   ||  	 jmlang%water%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa