¬ just serendipity 🍀 (not just serendipity)

In English-speaking North America (Canada, USA) we refer to currency in the following ways:

• $50
• fifty dollars
• 50 CAD, 50 USD – when necessary to disambiguate between Canadian and US dollars
• $50 CAD, $50 USD also works, but it’s less common

A format that is non-existent: 50$. It feels wrong to place the dollar sign after the dollar amount.

Now let’s switch to Europe¹:

• 50€
• fifty euros
• fifty euro (!!)
• 50 EUR

Uncommon: €50.

Some of these differences are annoying:

• Saying “fifty euro” feels utterly wrong (euro is countable!) but it is very commonplace, especially in Germany.
• When switching back-and-forth between dollars and euros and using the symbol notation, one needs to update prefixing/postfixing the symbol accordingly.

There’s also the fact that in North America we use a dot (.) to separate cents ($50.42) whereas in Europe we use a comma (,): 50,33€.

It is common to see 50€,- to denote “exactly fifty euros” i.e. 50,00€. That convention does not exist in North America. You’ll often see $49,99 or $49,90 instead of $50. I have never seen $50.-.