But 0.5 cents isn't the same as 0.5 dollars. So when does it switch over?
I suspect 0.03 cents is actually $0.0003, and cents don't mean dollars until you get below 0.01, but I'm really not sure.
I also feel like if we could really understand what's going on here, it could be really useful. If I could have predicted this as well as mjperson's Diet Coke Incident (http://mjperson.livejournal.com/11227.html), I'd have a much better understanding of my species.
I think it switches over when the word "point" enters into it. Point zero one means that one is a cent. You can see it when they're talking about .5 dollars - that's confusing, so he says "half a dollar". Sure, half a dollar is not the same as half a cent. But what the heck is point five dollars? Point notation is supposed to have two decimal places!
That is, 1.59 is a unit of money. One is in dollars, and .59 is in cents. Sure, .59 cents.
There's an interesting bit right before George hands off to Andrea, when George seems to be saying that "0.002 cents" is equivalent to "two-tenths of a penny." Do we think that "penny" means something different from "cent" to George?
I think it's that any amount which has a decimal point in it is essentially in the unit "moneys". 0.002 moneys is a hard amount of moneys, because it's not anything you can count out, but it's "two tenths of a penny". Not .02 pennies, because .02 has a decimal point in it, so that would be .02 moneys, or two pennies.
In English, how do you say $1.59? You don't actually say one point five nine dollars. You say "a dollar and fifty nine cents." 1.xx = one dollar. .59 = fifty nine cents. Cents aways have .s in front of them!
And I wouldn't blame you for being confused if I said "0.0625 gallons," because I'm violating the standard for what units to use for that order of magnitude.
The insight involved must actually be pretty sophisticated, because it's essentially what's necessary to stop using MCMLXVIII and go decimal, and some pretty smart guys went pretty far without ever figuring that one out.
(All this said, I still blame Verizon, for quoting the price per kilobyte instead of per megabyte. "Two dollars per Mb" makes everything perfectly clear.)
Let's test our comprehension. Is "point five nine cents" the same as "fifty-nine cents"?
It sounds like you're saying it is, because cents always have .s in front of them. But I find it hard to believe that people would claim that 0.59 cents = 59 cents.
Then again, I still find the original conversation difficult to understand, and the Diet Coke sympathetic magic still blows my mind.
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winterfish
no subject
Date: 2006-12-12 08:41 pm (UTC)I suspect 0.03 cents is actually $0.0003, and cents don't mean dollars until you get below 0.01, but I'm really not sure.
I also feel like if we could really understand what's going on here, it could be really useful. If I could have predicted this as well as
no subject
Date: 2006-12-12 08:54 pm (UTC)That is, 1.59 is a unit of money. One is in dollars, and .59 is in cents. Sure, .59 cents.
.5 is not a coherent unit of money. Nor is .002.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-12 09:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-12 09:15 pm (UTC)I think it's that any amount which has a decimal point in it is essentially in the unit "moneys". 0.002 moneys is a hard amount of moneys, because it's not anything you can count out, but it's "two tenths of a penny". Not .02 pennies, because .02 has a decimal point in it, so that would be .02 moneys, or two pennies.
In English, how do you say $1.59? You don't actually say one point five nine dollars. You say "a dollar and fifty nine cents." 1.xx = one dollar. .59 = fifty nine cents. Cents aways have .s in front of them!
no subject
Date: 2006-12-13 05:49 am (UTC)If the length is 1.5m, I don't say "one meter, fifty centimeters," but if it's 1.5ft I do say "one foot six inches."
Similarly, "one hour, twelve minutes, fifteen seconds."
And I wouldn't blame you for being confused if I said "0.0625 gallons," because I'm violating the standard for what units to use for that order of magnitude.
The insight involved must actually be pretty sophisticated, because it's essentially what's necessary to stop using MCMLXVIII and go decimal, and some pretty smart guys went pretty far without ever figuring that one out.
(All this said, I still blame Verizon, for quoting the price per kilobyte instead of per megabyte. "Two dollars per Mb" makes everything perfectly clear.)
no subject
Date: 2006-12-13 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 01:25 am (UTC)It sounds like you're saying it is, because cents always have .s in front of them. But I find it hard to believe that people would claim that 0.59 cents = 59 cents.
Then again, I still find the original conversation difficult to understand, and the Diet Coke sympathetic magic still blows my mind.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 02:19 pm (UTC)(So point five cents is *not* the same as half a cent, for example.)
I'm trying to think of another example where the "units" come before the number, but haven't thought of one yet.