Writing
Dates and Numbers
Euro-Style
Complete
Listing of Ed and Julie's Travel Tips and Planning Tools
 riting dates and numbers is
something you learned in sixth grade. What do Ed and Julie have to say on this subject
that you don't already know?
Well, when you show up for your hotel
reservation four months earlier than the hotel expected you, you'll know what! Or, when
you pay the cabbie only one one-thousandth of what you owe him, you'll understand why he
chases you down the street, and you'll have a better grasp on why we've written this short
lesson!
Most European bus systems require
boarding at the rear, while most US bus systems require boarding at the front. You pay for
your coffee in Italian cafes before you order it, not after. Differences are part of what
makes a trip to Europe enjoyable. Even non-mathematicians, then, will be delighted (?) to
learn that on your visit you'll find numbers work differently as well!
 ou received a
confirmation for your hotel room for the night of 6-10-01, right? Why, then, did they not
have a record of your reservation when you showed up on June 10th?
 n Europe, 6-10-01 is
the sixth of October, 2001. Yep. The month and day are written in reverse of US practice.
(Just as in the US, some will separate the numbers with dashes, others dots, yet others
the slash.)
Which, of course, is the reason we
suggest spelling out the month when booking hotels in Europe. Even if you abbreviate the
date in European fashion, the hotel may try to outguess you and reverse the month and day,
assuming you wrote in North American fashion!
You could also avoid problems by only
traveling in Europe after the 12th of any month since then there would be no confusion ...
after all 6-25-01 is not very ambiguous. Although, they may think you just made a stupid
mistake.  So
make it a practice to write dates out in full. Europeans would write the date as 12 June,
2001, but will understand June 12, 2001 just as well.
 ates are one thing,
but just plain numbers present another pair of problems, commas and periods.
What would you think of a price
written as 100.000? Would you think it's one hundred francs? One hundred francs, and the
writer just added an extra zero after the decimal point?
rong! That's not a decimal point, it's
a "decimal symbol", or "thousands separator". In Europe the
period is used to group numbers to the left of the decimal place and the comma is used to
mark the decimal place. 1.001,50 represents the number one thousand one and one-half.
Be a little careful for the next few
months, especially in Italy. Seeing a number there like the 100.000 may lead you to think
something is priced at 100 lire, when in fact the real price is one hundred thousand lire.
The introduction of the euro at the beginning of 2002 will make this a little easier.
If you want two hundred thousand lire
from the ATM make sure you key in 200000, not 200 as a friend thought. After all, he reasoned,
the Italians write two hundred thousand with a period in the middle. He thought that since
there were so many lire to the dollar that Italians just dropped the last three digits
everywhere. Not!
n dealing with money,
you should be aware of the various abbreviations that are used where we'd normally use a
dollar sign. For example the $ is often written USD. This is the standard international
abbreviation for "US dollars". DEM is the abbreviation for "Deutschland
Marks", ITL for "Italiano lire", CHF for "Confoederatio Helvetica
(Swiss) francs".
Europeans, though, often use the old
conventions rather than the newer "standards", just as we continue to use $s for
the most part rather than USD. DM for German Marks, Lit for Italian lire, Sfr for Swiss
francs. Italians also use the £ (pound symbol) on occasion.
 hould you want your
computer to produce dates in European fashion it's easily arranged in Windows through the
Control Panel, Regional Settings. There is surely a similar feature for Macs. One should
be able to change decimal place and number grouping symbols there as well, though most
versions sold in the US accept only the US settings. One suspects a download is available
from MS if one really wanted to make the change.
 emember, then, when
in Europe you'll want to watch your ps and qs ... and your numbers.
More "I
wish I'd known that before I left home":
The Metric System for Travelers ... now that you know
how to write numbers, here's how they use them in Europe.
Language Skills for Visitors to Europe ... you
probably haven't time to get to the 12th grade level in the laguage of your destination,
but you learn to say a few simple phrase pretty quickly, and please your hosts while
you're at it.
Top of Page
Complete Index
of Ed and Julie's
Travel Tips and Planning Tools
Our Favorites
Rome | Switzerland | Bavaria
| Ouray, CO
Trip Tips and Tools
Trip Planning | Best Websites | Travel Books | Been There...
| Group Tours
Travelogues | Metric System | Money | What to Wear | Guest
Book
Why Rome? | Why Switz.? | Why Plan? | Trip Packing | About TWEnJ
Topical Index | Search TWEnJ | E-mail Julie | Home Page
Copyright © 2001 E.J. Gehrlein
Published June 12, 2001
Traveling
The Not-For-Profit Site For Your Travel Plans
Use of this site constitutes your acceptance of these
Conditions Of Use |
