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For a contrived example in en-US:

10, 10., 10.0, 1,000, and 1,000,000.

Which could mean:

  • ten implying a countable amount
  • ten with decimal point implying two significant digits
  • ten with decimal and zero implying three significant digits
  • one thousand using comma separator implying a countable amount
  • one million using comma separator with ambiguous period which could be decimal or end of sentence

In fr-FR, would the same list be presented this way?

10, 10,, 10,0, 1 000, et 1 000 000.

In which case is the ambiguity at the end resolved? Is « ,, » ever allowed?

Stéphane Gimenez
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Yimin Rong
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1 Answers1

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In lists of items containing commas, e.g. decimal numbers, you should use the semi-colon to avoid potential ambiguities. That said, the comma is not usually used without a decimal part. If you really wanted to specify “10 with two significant digits”, you can use 1,0⋅10¹. I don't think it's a real issue considering the narrow use case, though. The other numbers are fine.

Evpok
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