10 ms·
Why on earth would someone abbreviate million as MM?
by dbcooper 15y ago
Why on earth would someone abbreviate million as MM?
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- zalew 15y agobut the funny thing is MM in roman notation would mean 2000
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- zalew 15y agoit's a financial notation, which bothers me too.
- heretohelp 15y agoPretty standard/common practice. When discussing certain quantities, including money, it's common to use MM such as $100MM. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_prefix#Similar_symbols_in_abbreviations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_prefix#Similar_symbols_in_ab...
- lookingsideways 15y agoIs this just a standard/common practice in America? I have yet to see it used anywhere else but then I am primarily exposed to UK/European news sources.
- sp332 15y agoI think it's used more often in finance here. It is a bit awkward when you have to check if something is "millions" or "millimeters" though.
- cabalamat 15y ago> Pretty standard/common practice. It's a common practise, but it's not a standard AFAIK. It's from latin mille which means 1000, so M=1000, and MM=1000000. Unfortunately there is also a much more widely used international standard where k=1000 and M=1000000, so the M/MM forms are to say the least, confusing, and ought to be scrapped.
- swombat 15y agoOn the other hand, I've never seen anyone use 10M to mean 10k, so there doesn't seem to be any actual confusion caused by this. 1000 = k 1000000 = either m or M or MM
- rmc 15y agoIt's a common practise That's the definition of a standard in the English language. but it's not a standard AFAIK There are no English Language standardisation bodies.
- jarek 15y agoYou know, I've always thought of "MM" as "millions," plural, the same way "p. 55" is "page 55" and "pp. 55-56" is "pages 55-56." No idea if that's common usage/interpretation though.