The abbreviations for one million and one thousand: what K and MM mean

This post is part of a series sponsored by Old Republic Surety.

If you’re confused by which letters represent a thousand and a million, you’re not alone. And it’s not your fault. In fact, it’s one of the most common questions we get asked. We’ll explain why it’s confusing and what to do about it.

Where does the abbreviation mm come from?

Western civilization is influenced by two powerful and often conflicting traditions: Greek and Roman. The Greeks called their god of the sea Poseidon, the Romans Neptune. The Roman god of wine is Bacchus, the Greek Dionysus. These differences are reflected in many parts of our culture, including financial analysis.

As a young banker in the mid-80s, I learned what had been taught for decades before that: in analytics, we abbreviate 1000 with the letter M. If you want to represent a million, you write it as MM. This is what the Romans taught us. M is the Roman numeral for 1000, and MM is 10 million, or one million. For that matter, a billion is written as $1MMM, or 1 billion.

But really, if we had an ancient Roman here and asked them to interpret the use of Roman numerals, they would find this tradition flawed because, strictly speaking, MM means 2000 and MMM means 3000. This reminds me of the old joke about the ancient Roman who would walk into a bar, give the bartender a peace sign with two fingers and say, “Five beers please.”

K stands for thousand, right?

Some of you may say, wait a minute. I’ve seen job ads with $50,000 salary, but K is short for 1000 dollars. Thanks to the Greeks, you’re right. K is the Greek for kilo, which means 1000. The Greeks similarly represent million with M, which is short for mega. So, if we’re going to be consistent with Greek abbreviations, a billion is represented by the letter G (giga). Think of how computers represent bytes of memory with kilobytes, megabytes, and gigabytes. But when it comes to a billion, you don’t really see G or MMM being short for a billion. You’re more likely to see a headline that says the government just spent $60 billion on a new project. They use B instead of billion. What can I say? The B in billion is not Greek or Roman, it’s simply the first letter of the word billion. So much for consistency.

Recently, The Daily Journal of Commerce It said that a new downtown post office will be built for $89 million. In the world of accounting and financial analysis, this would be interpreted as $89,000, but the context tells us that the headline writer meant $89 million. We sometimes have to code-switch and use context to determine what the author is trying to tell us. 2021 Associated Press Stylebook We checked with the majority of journalists to see if the guide would comment on how to abbreviate thousands and millions, the units used by most journalists. When writing, the guide advises using numerals only for numbers under a million, and spelling out numbers over a million, such as 2.4 billion, as “million,” “billion,” or “trillion.” Additionally, the Associated Press recommends abbreviating million with an “M” and billion with a “B” in headlines.

Agents often see us use M in thousands when giving quotes. Deposit interest rate or agent fees. For example, standard Class B rates start at $25/month for the first $100 million, $15/month for the next $400 million, and $10/month for the next $2 million. These rates are expressed in thousands, with MM standing for millions. Similarly, you may be quoted a single contractor line and a total contractor line. The lines may be expressed, for example, as a single $5 million and a total $15 million. If you are an agent or contractor: Guarantor “The customer Increase your bank limit It says “One million dollars.” I’m sure you can see that because of years of tradition, we’ve been trained to display one million dollars like this.

The fields of accounting, banking, and finance have adopted the Roman tradition, while other fields, such as computer programming and the high-tech industry, have adopted Greek-influenced abbreviations. This mix of traditions can make it hard to understand what people are trying to communicate when using abbreviations to represent thousands or millions. It’s an imperfect world.

Still have questions? We’re here to help.

At Old Republic Surety, we aim to provide transparency and clarity in our communications. If you come across any acronyms that are difficult to understand, please contact your local underwriter or branch Just to clarify, even if you are just asking a friend. If you want to know more about Old Republic Surety or our services, Commercial Surety Bondsand Contract Bondor if you would like more information, feel free to contact inquiry today.

This blog was originally Old Republic Surety websiteReprinted here with permission.