Riyals, not percentages

Walk a row of shops in Jeddah and you will see both signs. One says twenty per cent off. The next says twelve riyals.

The second one works, and the size of the saving has nothing to do with it.

A percentage is a sum. To know what it means the reader has to remember the old price, do the arithmetic, then decide whether the answer is worth crossing the road for. Nobody standing in a car park with a phone in one hand and a child's hand in the other does that. They see a number, feel nothing in particular, and keep walking.

A figure in riyals has already done the work. It is the answer, in the currency the reader thinks in, attached to the thing in front of them. Twelve riyals for the coffee. Two hundred and ninety for the tyre, fitted. Forty off the delivery, not off the order.

Look at who each sign was written for. The percentage travelled through the building unchanged. It is how the discount was argued for, how the margin was modelled, how it reads on the approval, how the buyer describes it to the category manager. Nobody in that chain ever had to translate it, so nobody noticed it had never been translated.

The riyal figure appeared in none of those conversations. Which is exactly why it survives contact with a customer, who is standing up, in a hurry, and reading in money.

A percentage is written for the person approving the offer. A riyal is written for the person paying it.