The Alphabetical reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004
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Alphabetical

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Alphabetical order is the usual indexing technique for the English language and all other languages which use the same letter system-the order of the alphabet. It should be noted that in such indexing, numbers come before letters and most symbols come before letters. However if the numbers are spelt out they are treated as words.

So: $2.99
would come before 2.99
but would come before 2 dollars 99
and that would come before two dollars 99
and that would come before 2 dollars 99

Roman numerals are treated as numbers, not letters.

Sticking things in alphabetical order is quite troublesome, due to the number of letters a word has. So in this list:

Betted would come after Bets and before Better.

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