5 ms·

Use of "mcg" for micrograms is common practice in medicine. I always assumed it was because it's easier to type than μg, but it seems a medical body recommends

by twic 3y ago

Use of "mcg" for micrograms is common practice in medicine. I always assumed it was because it's easier to type than μg, but it seems a medical body recommends it because μg is too easily mistaken for mg: https://www.ismp.org/sites/default/files/attachments/2017-11/Error%20Prone%20Abbreviations%202015.pdf https://www.ismp.org/sites/default/files/attachments/2017-11...

marcosdumay 3y ago
> μg is too easily mistaken for mg Is that some joke about medical writing? Anyway, I just noticed that table doesn't have rules for nanogram. There is also no mega-anything. (On a serious parenthesis, I think I actually understand their rationale; but changing the abbreviation of only one of them is still confusing.)
- tlb 3y ago
  Before Unicode, 'μ' was typically entered as an 'm' in a Greek font. This can go wrong in several ways, like if you converted the document to plain text, or if your laser printer didn't have the font and it substituted a regular font, you're suddenly off by a factor of 1000. 'mc' is ugly but safe.
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    Interesting. There's that too. I assumed it was because of the phonetic similarity.
  - danbruc 3y ago
    What time period, system and region are we talking about? For some characters using a specific font was certainly necessary but for µ? It is in the original IBM PC character set from 1981 and could easily be put into plain text files. I would guess that most extended ASCII character sets contain it but I don't know for sure. Every [German] keyboard I ever used had it on the M key.
    - tlb 3y ago
      I remember having to get a µ that way using FrameMaker on SunOS 4 in the mid-90s. Mac had a µ from the beginning. And some PC code pages did. But PCs in Canada (where I'm from) used code page 850, which had an Á (for French) where µ would be. Just the sort of thing that would hose you if you tried printing a Mac document on a school printer. Here's a howto article that suggests using an 'm' in the Symbol font in Word: https://www.officetooltips.com/word_2016/tips/how_to_insert_micro_sign_or_mu_symbol_in_word.html https://www.officetooltips.com/word_2016/tips/how_to_insert_...

by twic 3y ago

marcosdumay 3y ago

> μg is too easily mistaken for mg Is that some joke about medical writing? Anyway, I just noticed that table doesn't have rules for nanogram. There is also no mega-anything. (On a serious parenthesis, I think I actually understand their rationale; but changing the abbreviation of only one of them is still confusing.)

tlb 3y ago
Before Unicode, 'μ' was typically entered as an 'm' in a Greek font. This can go wrong in several ways, like if you converted the document to plain text, or if your laser printer didn't have the font and it substituted a regular font, you're suddenly off by a factor of 1000. 'mc' is ugly but safe.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  Interesting. There's that too. I assumed it was because of the phonetic similarity.
- danbruc 3y ago
  What time period, system and region are we talking about? For some characters using a specific font was certainly necessary but for µ? It is in the original IBM PC character set from 1981 and could easily be put into plain text files. I would guess that most extended ASCII character sets contain it but I don't know for sure. Every [German] keyboard I ever used had it on the M key.
  - tlb 3y ago
    I remember having to get a µ that way using FrameMaker on SunOS 4 in the mid-90s. Mac had a µ from the beginning. And some PC code pages did. But PCs in Canada (where I'm from) used code page 850, which had an Á (for French) where µ would be. Just the sort of thing that would hose you if you tried printing a Mac document on a school printer. Here's a howto article that suggests using an 'm' in the Symbol font in Word: https://www.officetooltips.com/word_2016/tips/how_to_insert_micro_sign_or_mu_symbol_in_word.html https://www.officetooltips.com/word_2016/tips/how_to_insert_...