Talk:Euro sign

Alain Billiet

The sentence "Actually the designer of the sign is Alain Billiet." was just removed for the reason "rv v" which I take to mean "revert vandalism". What's the story? Evertype 09:49, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Naïveté

Jenny Wong, I think the original text saying that the Commission somewhat naïvely believed that the logo was going to be used in all fonts is more accurate. I was a member of a CEN committee and we met with officials about getting the thing into computers, and they really did believe that everyone was going to do it that way. Naïveté is the word for that, isn't it? Evertype 21:05, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

A "commission" can't "believe" anything, only individuals can have believes. None of the early EU publications that I had seen at the time contained any guidance on font design. All geometric-guidance that I was able to find seemed really targeted at a >40 mm yellow-on-blue project-identity logo (for web sites, letter heads, posters, etc.), not at font designers. So I wonder, whether the claim "the Commission intended the logo to be a prescribed glyph shape" holds up to scruteny, and would prefer the phrase "some people suggested to also use the logo as a glyph shape". Are you sure, what you describe was really an early-on official policy, rather than just confusion by one or two Commission employees that you met? Jomsborg 11:51, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move. —Nightstallion (?) 11:53, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

• Euro symbol → euro sign — Currency signs are called "sign" not "symbol"; compare Dollar sign, Cent sign, Pound sign, Generic currency sign, and the collection at Currency sign. The Unicode name for all of these uses SIGN for the same reason. — Talk:Euro symbol — Evertype 09:33, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Survey

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

• Support as per the rationale above. Evertype 09:36, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
• Support agreed as obvious. Bkehoe 10:12, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
• Support makes sense. Loserdog³⁰⁰⁰ 10:13, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
• Strongly Oppose, see discussion section below: popular usage and official European Central Bank usage is Euro symbol. --Philip Baird Shearer 16:56, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose Philip makes a good case. Septentrionalis 17:11, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
• Strongly Support it is right. makes sense. Htoo Myint Naung (MyMyanmar)
• Support by the same rationale. In finance, a symbol would rather refer to a financial instrument (though not the FX rate). _└ ^VodkaJazz / _talk ^┐ 20:49, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Comments on the survey

• Bkehoe has only made a total of 8 contribution to en.wikipedia and taken part in one other survey. That was also proposed by Evertype [1] --Philip Baird Shearer 22:17, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Bkehoe did support the name change proposal for Longcase clock, yes. Evertype

• Loserdog account was created on the 2 June [2]. --Philip Baird Shearer 22:17, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know who this person is. Are you suggesting that I do? Evertype

• The "Htoo Myint Naung (MyMyanmar)" opinion was expressed by an IP number. See Revision as of 18:17, 10 June 2006,203.81.161.142 See also Revision as of 18:17, 10 June 2006, 203.81.161.142 ->Revision as of 18:23, 10 June 2006 Evertype --Philip Baird Shearer 22:17, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I know it was an IP number; I just wikified the link to the IP number in order to be helpful when the vote appeared in the list. Evertype

Discussion

Add any additional comments

A Google search returns:

• about 401,000 English pages for "Euro symbol" -wikipedia
• about 156,000 English pages for "euro sign" -wikipedia

So common usage is "Euro symbol" but coupled to this is the European Central Bank usage. A search of their web site ["euro sign" site:ecb.eu] returns 0, ["Euro symbol" site:ecb.eu] returns 4 documents:

• Euro our money

The graphic symbol. for the euro was. inspired by the Greek. letter epsilon and. refers to the first letter. of the word “Europe” ... When tilted, a hologram shows the euro symbol and the value of the banknote.

• Banknote and coin design (cached)
• OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK of 16 April 2004, at the request of the Council of the European Union on a proposal for a Council regulation, concerning medals and tokens similar to euro coins.

  The purpose of the proposed regu-lation is to protect the general public against fraud and confusion relating to euro coins as the general public could believe that medals and tokens have legal tender status if the words ‘euro’ or ‘euro cent’ or the euro symbol appear on them, and medals and tokens could be fraudulently used in coin-operated machines.

  • Corrigendum to the non-opposition to a notified concentration — (Case COMP/M.3392 — WestLB/Klöckner) Is a fix for an embarising mistake in the document above! "On page 11, paragraph 3, third line: for: ‘… of the euro symbol (IJ) on metallic objects …’, read: ‘… of the euro symbol (€) on metallic objects …’.

• British Government uses the phrase "Euro symbol" on a page called Euro Information
• For what is is worth Microsoft, Free BSD, and Adobe use this term on these pages Euro Currency Support for Windows 95, The Euro symbol on FreeBSD, Adobe Euro fonts

--Philip Baird Shearer 16:54, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I am not convinced by Philip's "case". He has only presented some evidence about the usage by the European Central Bank, but they and the Commission have done nothing but linguistic harm with regard to the name of the currency and now apparently of the currency sign, and I for one do not consider them authoritiative in this matter. (Interest rates, they can rule on. Not language.) Currency signs are currency signs, and it is absurd to talk about the dollar sign, the yen sign, the cent sign, the pound sign, but to have to refer the euro symbol. No one ever talks about the *dollar symbol, the *yen symbol, the *cent symbol, the *pound symbol, now do we? When it was created in the first place the ECB wanted it to be an immutable logo. They did not do any decent language planning or consultation, and what happens to be on their website is accidental. The proper name for this character is the euro sign and Wikipedia (which is not ruled by Google searches) should use this name for consistency with the names of other currency signs. It's bad enough that we have to continually remind people not to capitalize the name of the currency. Can we not have some sanity and have euro sign be the name of this article and let Euro symbol redirect to it? Thank you. Evertype 17:27, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

As I note above, I do not consider this usage to be normative in terms of language. No one, but no one, will say anything like this: "I have the dollar sign, the euro symbol, and the pound sign engraved on my keyboard, but the yen sign is not engraved." Currency signs are currency signs, not symbols. Evertype 17:34, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Google the UK parliament returns:

• 29 English pages from parliament.uk for "Euro symbol"
• 2 English pages from parliament.uk for "euro sign"

Apart from Common usage (~ 3 to 1 in a Google search) and official usage, not not only by ECB and the European Commission (The €uro: Our Currency ) and the British Government. How many more information is necessary for this page to remain where it is, and one would expect under WP:NC? --Philip Baird Shearer 17:45, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

and what happens to be on their website is accidental

I don't agree with you on this statment about their web site, but even if it were true, it would not be true for this official document (listed above) on the ECB website. --Philip Baird Shearer 17:59, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Naming consistency is not against the naming conventions. The article should follow the same conventions as do the names of other currency signs, and a redirect from Euro symbol to euro sign should be sufficient. I remain convinced that this page should be renamed, whether or not "euro sign" is less prominent at present than "euro symbol" on Google. People talk about currency signs, and use the word "sign" with them, and it is ridiculous for the euro sign to be any different just because the EU doesn't know anything about terminology and language planning. Evertype 18:06, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

That official document is not about assigning terminology. That's not what it's for. It does not say "Ye shall call this 'the euro symbol'." This is the same ridiculous mess we got into when they screwed up the plural of euro. You can't take that official document as a normative instruction to the world to call the € a symbol instead of a sign. Evertype 18:08, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Regarding naming consistency please see Currency sign Evertype 18:23, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

WP:NC says nothing about naming consistency, it says use the common name. In this case the two meld togehter because the common name is the same as the official name the "Euro symbol". As you point out a redirect can be used, and to keep the article at the common name ad official name (Not only used in Europe but also more frequently used in the British Parliament), a redirect can be used from euro sign to Euro symbol as it is now. --Philip Baird Shearer 21:42, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

That WP:NC says nothing about consistency does not mean that we cannot use our intelligence and choose consistency for a class of similar objects even if a Google search turns up numeric superiority for one particular variant as opposed to another. Google may have found 400,000 euro symbols but 156,000 euro signs is hardly insignificant. And I argue that the European Commission is known to have done a poor job with regard to terminology. Wikipedia has (after much argument on my part and the part of others) chosen to stick to the natural plurals euros and cents, though "officially" in EU legislation the s-less plurals are used. Therefore the usage of the ECB does not impress me, and the fact that they have managed to spread their meme as far as Microsoft impresses me even less. Clearly they were not thinking about context, and the linguistic context that the euro sign lives in is that it is one of a class of currency signs. You ignored my suggestion to look at Currency sign. What's wrong with this picture?

• ¤ generic currency sign, ฿ baht sign, ₵ cedi sign, ¢ cent sign, ₡ colón sign, $ dollar sign, ₫ đồng sign, € euro symbol, ₴ hryvnia sign, ₭ kip sign, ₤ lira sign, ₥ mill sign, ₦ naira sign, ₱ peso sign, £ pound sign, ៛ riel sign, ₨ rupee sign, ৳ rupee sign, ₪ new sheqel sign, ₩ won sign, ₮ tugrik sign, ¥ yen sign.

There's only one thing wrong with it: € "euro symbol" needs to be € "euro sign". And what's more, Google the Irish parliament returns:

• 4 English pages from oireachtas.ie for "Euro symbol" (jocular references talking about changing the shamrock to a euro symbol on Aer Lingus tail fins)
• 8 English pages from oireachtas.ie for "euro sign" (discussing technical changes to legislation with regard to the "pound sign" and the "euro sign")

This is on the same scale as the 29-to-2 pages you got from the UK, and favours the term "euro sign". Evertype 22:41, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

There's a reason why consistency is not policy; to avoid arguments like this. A foolish consistency is a hobgoblin of little minds. Septentrionalis 23:28, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Consistency is not proscribed, either, and I have not proposed this change on a whim. Quoting Emerson does not trump the proposal, because there is nothing foolish about preferring the term "euro sign" along with all the other currency signs. Evertype 08:18, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

“Undisputed” designs of Arthur Eisenmenger

Article text: “The official story of the design history of the euro sign is disputed by Arthur Eisenmenger, a former chief graphic designer for the EEC, whose claims to have had the idea before. Eisenmenger's undisputed design achievements include the flag of the European Union.” However, the European flag page says it was designed by Arsène Heitz. -Ahruman 07:20, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Gnomon says: Why not just change it to Arsene Heitz, then? I don't know how these things are done on Wikipedia.

THE EMPEROR HAS ARRIVED

I offer me to create & upload a SVG version of the euro design image. --Walter Humala - Emperor of West Wikipedia |wanna Talk? 02:18, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Too many pictures?

Before an edit war ensues I thought I'd address this here... Do we think this article has too many illustrations piled together or do we think this is a positive thing? Tomsintown 23:07, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I just think that the image in question is a nice picture and this article is the best place to place it. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 23:11, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Alain Billiet

Wy is Alain Billiet not mentioned? It is he that is the designer of the sign. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.201.146.151 (talk) 18:29, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

Arthur Eisenmenger says that he is the designer.--Gloriamarie 04:39, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

10 Other Currency Signs

I'm curious to see what the other 10 designs were that voters chose from. It would be interesting to add a link to pictures in the article. I took a quick look on a search engine but didn't find anything. Does anyone have a link to those designs?Gloriamarie 21:57, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

So am I! Back in January 2006, I emailed Dr. Peter Diem, the author of the excellent research paper The Symbols of Europe, to see if he could help me on this since I couldn't find that info anywhere. He told me he couldn't find it also, but recommended me to contact the National Bank of Austria, saying that they were very knowledgeable with regard to the EURO. I did that, but their answer was: "regarding your request please contact directly the European Commission, which was responsible for the Euro symbol. http://europa.eu.int/comm/index_en.htm". After that I stopped my research, maybe you might want to finish it where I left it =). Waldir 16:10, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

US cent symbol in Ireland

Removed "the American-style "¢" occasionally in Ireland" from the section referencing abbreviations for cent. There's no support for this statement given, and being Irish, having lived there my entire life, I've never once seen this. If it does occur, it's not notable and would be misleading.213.94.244.94 20:18, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Euro sign font

€

€

€

The euro logotype and its character.

Please provide some input as to which font to use in the blue box. I prefer sans-serif (Arial), simply because it matches the original design closest. Another editor disagrees, So I'm putting up for discussion here. — Edokter • Talk • 20:18, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, how about the graphic that displays the sign in 9 different fonts? Wouldn't that be a nice compromise? It has them all! Besides, it would make the article a bit less messy. SergioGeorgini 00:40, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

It certainly looks to me as if Arial is closer than Tahoma, looking at the top right --Rumping (talk) 06:46, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

What if there were two pictures side by side as the main illustration? One of the official blue-yellow logo and one of a hand-drawn € on a restaurant blackboard or something. It would cover both the official logotype and the typographical character which it spawned, not to mention showcase the contrast in one fell swoop. Would everybody be okay with that? SergioGeorgini (talk) 23:00, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

5€20?

Is there any basis for the claim that this is a common way to denote prices in Europe? I haven't seen it anywhere in Germany, France or England (the latter of which would not be an authority on usage of the symbol anyway). Maybe I'm just blind, but does anybody really use the Euro sign as seperator when the price includes cents? --— Ashmodai ^{(talk · contribs)} 19:36, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

It's very common in France. Orange uses it (example on website, but may change obviously). Carrefour uses it (ditto). They did the same with French francs (100F50) and still do with times (10h20). --- SergioGeorgini (talk) 00:31, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Is it common anywhere outside France? Otherwise the claim is blatantly false. That'd be a national peculiarity rather than something common "in Europe". — Ashmodai ^{(talk · contribs)} 11:01, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

It's not false; it's vague. "In many other countries, including France and Germany, an amount such as €3.50 is often written as 3,50€ or 3€50 instead" is still technically correct, but obviously about as helpful as the sentence "some people are nice" would be in an article about social etiquette. The problem is that there are virtually no sources on this subject, at least I couldn't find any. A reliable source would be great if anyone has one. SergioGeorgini (talk) 01:22, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

In many other countries, including France and Germany, an amount such as €3.50 is often written as 3,50 € or 3€50 instead, largely following conventions for their former currencies. I agree that the statement is correct, but it is misleading. The reason Germans write 3,50 € rather than €3.50 is a linguistic convention. The decimal separator in German is , and all currency symbols are usually placed after the figure, so it's also 3,50 $ and 3,50 £. --85.181.232.4 (talk) 11:26, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

A typographic convention, surely. Anyway, I think it doesn't belong in the article at all, as it isn't at all related to the Euro Sign. --Peterbruells (talk) 08:41, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

You're both correct. It is a linguistic issue, albeit a singular one; in those languages where a currency sign is placed in front of the amount (e.g. English, Dutch), no other symbol's placement defies pronunciation like that. Moreover, in Austria, where German is spoken, the sign is also placed before the figure, but in Germany it is not. Finally, the sign was not — as the dollar and pound signs have been in their respective territories — historically a part of European vernacular, but instead artificially thrust upon the Eurozone in the late 1990s. In that process, in the sort of temporary myopia that so often overcomes the institution and as has been repeated multiple times, the EU declared that it would decide how the sign was to be used, right down to the color palette. This was mostly ignored, of course, but the point is that this new sign did bring along specific typographic/syntactical issues. So I personally do feel that it does deserve a mention, even if I agree that thee section could benefit from some serious rewording and/or condensing. Go ahead if you feel so inclined! SergioGeorgini (talk) 22:28, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Epsilon inspiration

Є is not a Greek epsilon. Is this an error by Wikipedia or by the creator of the Euro sign?--77.241.141.10 (talk) 17:56, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

The same symbol is on the page that is the source of the citation. So the error is not Wikipedia's. Svick (talk) 18:17, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

It is, in fact, an epsilon. It's a commonly used form of the letter epsilon (like the different versions of the letters "a" and "g"), technically called "Lunate Epsilon") -- for example, it's the form used in the font Lucida Sans Unicode, although the character used here is not actually an epsilon but a Cyrillic letter (I think?) that looks effectively the same. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon. It's safe to remove the "sic." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.71.10.220 (talk) 09:47, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Ɇ

Don't know if this is of any interest for the article on the euro sign, but apparently an early (1970s?) draft of a European single currency symbol looked more or less like a double-stroke E (see [3]).

not quite a €

Speculation-mode on: In my eyes this creation avoids some of the typographical problems that come with €, trading them in, however, for a complicated design. An alloglyph Ɇ would seem a natural evolution ... Anothername (talk) 17:53, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I think that horror on the right is supremely ugly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.87.39 (talk) 07:52, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Keyboard Combinations

Is the paragraph about key combinations necessary? It could never be full and comprehensive, since there are tons of layouts, languages etc. Besides, Wikipedia is not an instruction manual. —Volgar (talk) 07:24, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

About a citation

>font designers made it clear that they intended to design their own variants instead.[4]

Citation [4] is just an e-mail discussion. Is there any way to know if these people are actually designers of broadly used fonts, and whether they actually wrote what [4] says they wrote? For evidence that designers ended up adapting the glyph to their font styles, wouldn't it be better to simply cite how the glyph appears in various broadly used fonts, like Book Antiqua, Times, Arial, Helvetica, and so on?