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Subject:SI units (Was: Use of K and M) From:"Bonnie Nestor (NESTORM -at- FEDC04 -dot- FED -dot- ORNL -dot- GOV" <nestorm -at- FEDC04 -dot- FED -dot- ORNL -dot- GOV> Date:Thu, 8 Dec 1994 15:48:48 GMT
John Gear asks whether there is a standard for SI units. But of course...
right here on my shelf I have the following item:
American Society for Testing and Materials. _ANSI/ASTM Standard for Metric
Practice_, E380-86. Philadelphia: American Society for Testing and Materials,
1986.
(Note that the E380 designation is fixed; the 86 indicates the year of
revision -- there may be a newer edition.)
So far as I know, this is the U.S. standard for metric practice. There's a note
on the first page stating that it "is approved for use by agencies of
the Department of Defense."
Using k (or K) or M alone or attached to a dollar figure is, let us say, not a
formal usage. The ASTM standard notes that "These prefixes or their symbols are
used to form names and symbols of the decimal multiples and submultiples of SI
units..."
I tend to let things like "$3.2M" go on internal presentation materials, but
I'm very firm about formal publications -- I think it's much clearer to write
"$3.2 million."
Bonnie Nestor
mnj -at- ornl -dot- gov
Speaking only for myself, as always (though I will admit that my copy of this
standard is government property).
