this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2025
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[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 19 points 3 days ago (11 children)

To express a range of numbers, Korean (and likely other Asian languages) will use a tilde instead of a dash or hyphen. To me, that better expresses that we're talking about an indeterminate value or a range. Especially when we use ~ for "about", as in ~$20 for something that costs $17.99 before tax, for example.

Dining out costs like 20~40 dollars per person!

Whereas "20-40" looks too similar to a subtraction equation or a hyphenated word to me.

[–] sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 days ago (4 children)

USA English also uses ~ before a number to signify "about" in informal contexts. "It costs ~$20".

Chemistry has a weird one for this: "ca. 20 mL" means "about 20 mL" and I never found out why.

[–] ajoebyanyothername@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago (2 children)
[–] Skua@kbin.earth 3 points 2 days ago

It is circa, but I like to think it's "chemist's approximately"

[–] sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Maybe, I usually only hear that in relation to time / maybe I'm not remembering it right, or maybe chemists apply it to amounts as well

Same, but it does mean 'around' or 'approximately', so would still work in this context.

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