The Globalization of Punctuation

Do you display your phone number with dashes or periods?

ie: 555.555.5555 or 555-555-5555

The punctuation you choose says a lot about your company (or maybe just your choice of designer). And now it appears that there is a global angle to this story; according to this article, some folks believe periods are becoming popular in the US because they make phone numbers appear more international.

Here’s an excerpt…

    Another phone buff, Roger Conklin of Palmetto Bay, Fla., thinks globalization played a role. “The Europeans have been using dots from the beginning of time. Americans adopted dashes. Now that the world is getting smaller, each tends to want to emulate the other, resulting in a mixture,” Conklin said.
John Yunker
John Yunker

John is co-founder of Byte Level Research and author of Think Outside the Country as well as 19 editions of The Web Globalization Report Card.

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