What does "$10MM" mean?

  • Thread starter Thread starter joeu2004
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J

joeu2004

Not exactly an Excel question, but "$10MM" was used in an Excel
question posted in these newsgroups.

What exactly does $10MM mean?

In a Google search for $10MM, I found two online news articles in
which $10MM was in the headline, but the text spoke of "10 million
dollars".

If it means "10 million dollars", as I suspect, why not write $10M?

When I look at $10MM, I think of "10 million million dollars" -- that
is, 10 trillion dollars (10^12).

But the context of the Excel question suggests to me that that is not
what was intended.
 
MM is a pretty standard abbreviation for Million. It comes from Latin
"Mille" meaning "thousand", so MM is a "thousand thousands" equals one
million.


--
Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Pearson Software Consulting, LLC
www.cpearson.com
(email address is on the web site)
 
MM is used for million by people who use M to mean thousand. In my experience,
bond traders fall into this category. It would be nice if they joined the 21st
century and switched to K and M like the rest of the world.
 
MM is a pretty standard abbreviation for Million. It comes from Latin
"Mille" meaning "thousand", so MM is a "thousand thousands" equals one
million.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense, given the French meaning of
"mille", too.

I am used to "M" being an abbreviation for "mega", which in
engineering circles means million. And in anticipation of the endless
debate over whether that means 1000*1000 or 1024*1024, I hasten to
point out that MHz -- meaning 1,000,000 hertz -- existed long before
we started counting memory capacity in multiples of 1024. In fact,
some of the first "1K" memory chips contained only 1000 bits (1x1K).
My point is: the engineering meaning of "M" and "K" is context-
sensitive, and it always has been. Nevertheless, I am aware of IEEE
efforts to redefine the prefix and/or abbreviation for "million".
 
MM is used for million by people who recognize that some other people use M
to mean thousand (like the hundreds of millions of humans with a romance
language as their native language). I use k for a thousand and mm for a
million and I am very much a part of the 21st century. mm is unambiguous and
harmless.
 
mm is not "unambiguous and harmless" as it is the standard abbreviation for
millimeter. Better to spell numbers out entirely.

Dave
 
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