this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2026
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2022: Come on, it's just 8$ it's basically the price of a coffee.
2026: Come on, it's just 20$ it's basically the price of a coffee.
2030: Come on, it's just 50 bottle caps, it's basically the price of a coffee.
2050: What’s coffee?
:(
Literally every year since the internet was created: the dollar sign goes before the number, my dude.
The dollar sign in English, maybe. But other languages and currencies have the symbol after the value, so it's easy to get confused
I understand that it’s different in other languages, but I often see this behavior from native US Americans who only speak English.
Didn't know since we don't follow this convention where I'm from.
Shrugs
Where are you from? In English it's always the case that you put the dollar sign before the number.
Every one of these symbols goes before the number: $€£¥₹
Where are you from where it comes after? What currency do you use?
The only time this comes after the number, that I am aware of, is when you use abbreviations like USD or EUR instead of the symbol.
It's language specific. In english it comes before the number. In many other languages it comes after.
Is it that relevant in this day and age? I was taught you put £ (or whatever currency you're using) first when you're writing so Johnny Fraudster can't turn your 100£ into 1100£.
That all feels a bit immaterial on the web.
Hence the underline under the 00 cents/pence on a check/cheque.
Yes, it’s relevant in this day and age, because it’s still incorrect to do it the other way (at least in English and with $£¥ and a couple others, as another commenter pointed out).
When I read “20$” my first thought is that the person writing it didn’t pay attention in elementary school.
And being lenient about it on the web leads to the behavior leaking into the real world on things like shop signs.
Don’t even get me started on people who (mostly IRL) write things like “0.99¢” which makes me want to give them a cent and tell them to keep the change.
Now think about how much worse it is for every non-English western language! But good luck with your endeavour.
Thanks! Yeah I guess it might be hard for some people, but I speak some French and Spanish and it's not hard for me to remember to ¡use proper exclamation points in Spanish! or «use guillemets instead of quotation marks in French». This feels like the same sort of thing.