Talk:Euro sign

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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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

[edit] 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.