Formality of business or academia.

[889]

And there is now an underground rail line linking Beijing Zhan and Beijing Xi.

 

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8C%97%E4%BA%AC%E5%9C%B0%E4%B8%8B%E7%9B%B4%E5%BE%84%E7%BA%BF

 

But has anyone uncovered this line in use? It was no doubt built at great cost, but to what end?

 

(The Wikipedia entry shows one up-down line using it, at midnight and 3 am, hardly justifying the expense.)

[roddy]

Ha, there's an error on the English version of that page. Compare: 

• 限制坡度：16‰
• Limiting gradient: 16%

 

You rarely if ever see the ‰ symbol used in English, which is why people don't notice it isn't a % and get everything out of whack by factor of ten. It's called the permille (because it's per thousand, while percent is per hundred). Then you need to be careful you don't accidentally read a permille when someone at the end of a sentence with Chinese punctuation puts a %。

[889]

Shhh, or banks will start using that symbol, so they can offer interest rates of 2‰  instead of 0.2%.