Dealing with Percentages – Part 1
A percentage, for the lack of a better definition, is a number or ratio as a fraction of 100. Probably its oldest application, like so many other things in today’s world, was at the time of the Roman Empire. Augustus, founder of the Roman Empire and its first Emperor, levied a tax of 1/100 on goods sold at auction known as centesima rerum venalium. Computation with these fractions was similar to computing percentages. The word itself is derived from the Latin per centum meaning “by the hundred”. The percent sign evolved by gradual contraction of the phrase “per cento”. The "per" was often abbreviated as "p." and eventually disappeared entirely. The "cento" was contracted to two circles separated by a horizontal line from which the modern "%" is derived. But enough about history…let us come back to the present and some practical uses of percentages.
