[OT] Re: Spam : Re: ISO 10646 compliance and EU law

From: Doug Ewell (dewell@adelphia.net)
Date: Fri Dec 31 2004 - 16:27:21 CST

  • Next message: Michael Everson: "[OT] Re: Spam : Re: ISO 10646 compliance and EU law"

    Philippe Verdy <verdy underscore p at wanadoo dot fr> wrote:

    > So the official term in France is not "cent" but preferably "centime"
    > (the same term that was used for the subdivision of the French Franc),
    > and "eurocentime" was also used for the short period when both
    > currencies were legal. Today, eveybody says "centime" (even if
    > European texts and the europa.eu.int web site say that only the terms
    > "cent" plural "cents" should be used, this applies for cross-border
    > transactions and texts, and to minted coins, but not in France for all
    > commercial transactions and advertizing...)

    The UK went through this in the early '70s, as the "penny" (1/240 of a
    pound) was replaced by the "new penny" (1/100 of the same pound), then
    the "old" penny was demonetized and the new penny became known as simply
    the "penny."

    As Michael implied, the true purpose of making the name "euro" constant
    seems to have been to prevent the appearance that multiple currencies
    were in effect, not to stomp on legitimate linguistic differences. I
    assume that variations on the subdivision "cent," such as "centime" and
    "lepta," were not deemed to suffer from the same potential for
    confusion.

    I don't know about French, but no legislation in English could possibly
    stop advertisers and private citizens from dreaming up new, colorful
    synonyms for "dollar" and "pound." I'm sure there are, or will be,
    plenty of slang English words for "euro" as well.

    -Doug Ewell
     Fullerton, California (non-euro zone)
     http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/



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