Byrne Robotics: Those Internet Headlines (Again)

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Topic: Those Internet Headlines (Again)

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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132234

Posted: 16 March 2018 at 11:32am \| IP Logged \| 1	post reply

Why can a headline say...

BOY, 13, WINS

...but 100,000,000 has to be expressed as "1000000000"?

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Robbie Parry
Byrne Robotics Member
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Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 12186

Posted: 16 March 2018 at 12:08pm \| IP Logged \| 2	post reply

Yes. In no way is "1000000000" easy on the eye.

I don't read newspapers now, I wonder if they do the same.

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Eric Sofer
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Joined: 31 January 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 4789

Posted: 17 March 2018 at 6:01pm \| IP Logged \| 3	post reply

Because there are very few editors remaining smart enough to know what one hundred million is supposed to look like. And if it IS supposed to be presented numerically, I'll wager that a lot of them have no idea where to put the commas.

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Christopher Frost
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Joined: 24 October 2016
Location: Canada
Posts: 484

Posted: 17 March 2018 at 8:44pm \| IP Logged \| 4	post reply

The education system is likely at fault here. I graduated back in the early 90's and we were never taught to use commas for large numbers when I was going through the school system.

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