On 25 Jun 99, at 2:36, Markus Kuhn wrote:
> It is actually surprising that the US don't use Romal numerals that
> much any more, a frightening spread of modern conventions I'd say.
Ah - but sales and financial people use them all the time. When they
talk about "$10MM" projected sales for next year, they mean "ten
million dollars". More bizarre - when I worked in the oil industry
in Canada some years ago, metric units were used (e.g. litres, cubic
metres), but as often as not senior management retained their old pre-
metric habits and used expressions like "10 MM litres" (meaning 10**6
L) and even "10 M cuM" meaning "10**4 m**2". And they didn't seem to
see anything wrong with it.
I am aware of three sets of multipliers in common use (at least in
Canada): those of SI, those of the financial world, and those of the
tabloid newspaper headlines.
So:
SI Financial Tabloid Multiplier
k (kilo) M (Roman) G (grand) 10**3
M (mega) MM (Roman) B (billion) 10**6
G (giga) MMM (rare) Tr (trillion) 10**9
Tony H.
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