As far as I know, the usual unit prefix for millions is mega, written as M. I think it should apply to unit-less numbers as well.

Thus, I suggest that


is changed to


It's arguably much cooler to see a bigger M anyway.

  • 68
    Well, he has a point. – Pekka supports GoFundMonica Jun 2 '15 at 15:28
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    Your reputation also uses k rather than K. – Jeroen Vannevel Jun 2 '15 at 15:28
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    @JeroenVannevel A lowercase k is to be used for kilo. Uppercase K means something else on its own (a temperature unit), but it's used in Ki, most notably with KiB. – Bartek Banachewicz Jun 2 '15 at 15:29
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    I personally find the usage of wrong SI units slightly offensive and outright misleading. For a site that boasts to be the pantheon of accuracy, this is quite disappointing. – user703016 Jun 2 '15 at 15:32
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    @Pekka웃 that may be but, OTOH,it's another chance to downvote Bartek. – Martin James Jun 2 '15 at 15:35
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    Meh, it is unambiguous, we don't keep track of milli-votes. – Hans Passant Jun 2 '15 at 15:41
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    @HansPassant I don't think this ever was a question of ambiguity. Even if there's a place where milliputts live :). – Bartek Banachewicz Jun 2 '15 at 15:51
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    [status-declined] duplicate on the Overmeta: Use 'M' for million instead of 'm'. – Frédéric Hamidi Jun 2 '15 at 16:13
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    Meta makes a good point: these aren't SI units, it's EN-US slang (more or less). For most people in EN-* locales, the UX is better than SI units would be, with no loss of accuracy or real problems. – ssube Jun 2 '15 at 16:39
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is a duplicate of a post on the correct site, MSE. – Lightness Races with Monica Jun 2 '15 at 18:52
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    @LightnessRacesinOrbit Posts are not off-topic here on mSO if they would be a better fit on mSE. See Users Can Report Bugs On Whatever Child Meta Site Suits Them. – hichris123 Jun 2 '15 at 22:20
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    @hichris123: I didn't say it was off-topic. Well, okay, I did, but only because I didn't edit out the auto-generated prefix text. :P The point is that there is already a post about this; we don't need another. Alas of course I cannot cast an actual dupe-vote. So, this. :) – Lightness Races with Monica Jun 2 '15 at 22:47
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    @HansPassant m could be short for mille, meaning thousand. Unnecessarily using incorrect syntax is just plain wrong. – Klas Lindbäck Jun 3 '15 at 10:54
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    I think 4,400,000 would be cooler. – camden_kid Jun 3 '15 at 15:25
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    Well, I thought that SO prided itself on reaching a global audience. If it only targets people in a EN-* locale, it's not very global. If it is global, it should use international standards rather than "US slang"... – Kheldar Jun 3 '15 at 15:41

This is pretty much the most valid comment:


We're not speaking of internationalized units here.


The usual prefix for mega is M. It just so happens that mega is of the order of magnitude of millions, so a sloppy equivalence (similar to PHP's ==) makes people think that million actually means mega.

We're not speaking mega-people-reached, or kilo-people-reached here. Those unit signs should apply when referencing standard, internationalized units, not people who may have viewed your activity on Stack Overflow.

  • 56
    So change it to say "4.4 megapeople reached". runs away – dcsohl Jun 3 '15 at 18:27
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    Good point, I'm less upset by this now. – Will Jun 3 '15 at 18:44
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    4.4 megapeople may sound strange, but probably still would be quite .. internationaly-recognized. Actually, it somewhat boils down to a notion of "a unit" meaning 1 item, which also is quite recognizable, so I don't find unitless 1M or 1G meaning 10^6 or 10^9 of items an ill-use of the well-known prefixes. I find the problem with score representation to be rather different: the number lacks a reasonable .. unit. Because as it is now, 10.4K would mean 10^3-of-what? helps-per-day? :] why not. JohnSkeet: 12.5 Mhp/s hmm.. – quetzalcoatl Jun 3 '15 at 19:17
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    Whilst I don't like the fact that such a slang is used, I am accepting this as the answer which doesn't take sides and explains the current status. – Bartek Banachewicz Jun 3 '15 at 19:24
  • It looks you've mixed mebi with mega. i.e., MiB vs. MB. – jfs Jun 3 '15 at 19:47
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    We're not speaking mega-people-reached, or kilo-people-reached here. Then why the k suffix for thousands? If it's that "EN-US slang" thing you mention, where can I find the specs for it? I am from a part of the world where EN-US slang is not the default locale: the UX argument is hazy at best, while SI units (or spelling out the number) are unambiguous for everyone everywhere. The current solution is a mish mash of confusion. – user703016 Jun 4 '15 at 3:21
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    The phrase "EN-US slang (more or less)" is confusing some people into thinking this is only used informally in the US, when in reality it's more widespread than that. It's often used in UK newspaper headlines, for example. Basically, for everyone who's confused by this, take the question to ELU. – Dan Getz Jun 4 '15 at 4:53
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    @buttifulbuttefly Sorry that you feel that way. I myself am not from a place where EN-US is the default locale. Even then k for thousand is very common around here, which could be counter-intuitive for a french-speaking place. And as far as I'm concerned, m for million has been very clear from the first time I've seen it. – Félix Gagnon-Grenier Jun 4 '15 at 5:17
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    Even if it isn't clear the first time (lol?), once explained the first time, now you know. Since it isn't critical information, it's okay that it took a little exploration and self-education to discover the meaning. You'll never have to go through it again, so it is hardly a big deal. – Chris Baker Jun 4 '15 at 14:39
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    @njzk2 10k = 10,000, whatever it is you're talking about. If I told you I make 100k at my job, I make $100,000 per year. Like all languages, context matters as do local customs (which is how you know I mean PER YEAR even though I never said it, as people describe their pay in terms of salary per year). At the same time, if I told you I make $10, you'd likely assume I mean I make $10 PER HOUR (and thus am an hourly employee, not salaried). – Andy Jun 4 '15 at 16:04
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    @Andy: 10k == 10000, because k == 1000, I think every one more or less agrees on that. But where does the k come from, if not from kilo? – njzk2 Jun 4 '15 at 16:12
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    the point is that such signs are used with another unit. kilograms. kilobytes. kilometers. not kilopeople-reached. Invoking the SI on a not internationalized unit is not relevant. – Félix Gagnon-Grenier Jun 4 '15 at 16:14
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    Yes, this. From the SE meta: Sanity check: If the number got into the billions, would you really expect to see "1.5G"? I know I certainly wouldn't. – Ajedi32 Jun 5 '15 at 14:38
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    @Ajedi32 Well, I actually would expect "1.5G". And now? – Sebastian Negraszus Jun 5 '15 at 16:32
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    @SebastianNegraszus Assuming that's actually true and you're being serious, my response would be that I'm convinced you're in a very small minority, even among SO users. – Ajedi32 Jun 5 '15 at 16:58

Forget the abbreviation; let's just use E notation...




  • 58
    How about lowercase e? runs away – Frédéric Hamidi Jun 3 '15 at 15:43
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    e^(i*π) + 1 :):) – Tristan Wiley Jun 3 '15 at 15:57
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    @FrédéricHamidi wouldn't want it confused for the mathematical constant e. Then again, maybe someone would assume E means energy. :P – I am Monica Jun 3 '15 at 17:10
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    yeay! so pretty! – quetzalcoatl Jun 3 '15 at 19:09
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    I would definitely find it subtly amusing and appropriate if the E notation was used in the Math* community sites, and perhaps the science ones as well. And I would not mind it here either. Appropriate and not ambiguous for those that have a different word for 1e6 and 1e9. – vgoff Jun 3 '15 at 19:10
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    @TristanWiley: are you suggesting to measure "people reached" in multiples of zero? 𝒆 ^ 𝒊⋅𝝅 ＋ 𝟏 ＝ 𝟎 – jfs Jun 3 '15 at 19:52
  • 1e6 is easily expandable as well (1e7 etc.), or do they have to be imperial units? – axello Jun 4 '15 at 6:39
  • @J.F.Sebastian shrug just reminded me of the equation – Tristan Wiley Jun 4 '15 at 15:40
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    @vgoff the greater meta.SE community was less than amused by this suggestion. :/ – I am Monica Jun 9 '15 at 14:56
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    E is much less confusing, I vote for this one. Maybe then people won't waste time submitting bug reports (and other people won't waste time closing those bug reports) like I did – jcollum Aug 29 '16 at 16:14

How about a compromise:

Use small caps for the M, like this:


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    Now it is a lowercase cyrillic M. I like that =) – Mints97 Jun 4 '15 at 8:40
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    @Mints97: That is not correct. The character ᴍ is U+1D0D: LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL M. This is not the same thing as м which is U+043C: CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER EM. – Andreas Rejbrand Jun 4 '15 at 20:12
  • @AndreasRejbrand: sorry, I simply meant that they look about the same =) – Mints97 Jun 4 '15 at 21:34
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    @Mints97: Ah, I almost got that! :) – Andreas Rejbrand Jun 4 '15 at 22:19

TL;DR: This is an abbreviation of the number, not of the unit.

As noted, M is an SI prefix for mega-, but I think the important point being missed here is that not only does the usage in question not actually mean mega nor is it for an SI unit, but it isn't even a prefix (it's being used as a suffix to the number, not a prefix to the unit; the unit isn't megapeople, it's still people).

It's common in all English-speaking locales (AFAIK) to abbreviate million to m; for example "4m points" is literally read as "four million points", not "four megapoints".

  • 2
    I would read that a "4 meters points" and wonder why there's no space between the "4" and the "m" – Paul H Jun 4 '15 at 15:53
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    @PaulH Would you really? If I said "I have 4m points on Stack Overflow," it would take somebody dumber than you to think I meant "4 meters points" (which is both factually and grammatically incorrect) rather than "4 million points." – The Guy with The Hat Jun 4 '15 at 19:52
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    As civil engineer first and programmer second, "4m points" actually just looks like nonsense to me. My first thought would be either 1) locations spaced 4 m apart or 2) points with zones of influence 4 m in diameter. – Paul H Jun 4 '15 at 19:56
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    @PaulH So how would you read this headline: England to be 1m homes short of housing its people by 2025? As a civil engineer, would you think it means England will be short of 1 metre high houses? As with a lot of things in natural language, context is highly relevant and meaning is deduced as much from the surrounding words as the words themselves. – megaflop Jun 5 '15 at 10:40
  • Of course context is important. I'd figure it out, but it also makes me think that the telegraph is pretty sloppy with prefixes (but so is the UK's adoption of SI). There are plenty of reasons "m" is good enough, but none are very compelling and none outweigh, in my mind, the fact the "M" would be better. – Paul H Jun 5 '15 at 14:05
  • I could write "Austin, Tex" on a letter, and the U.S. Postal service would know I meant "Austin, TX", but that doesn't change the fact that "TX" is the official abbreviation for Texas w/i the postal system. – Paul H Jun 5 '15 at 14:06
  • You've clearly missed my point then: The "m" isn't being used as a unit prefix; it is being used to abbreviate the word "million". – megaflop Jun 5 '15 at 15:09
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    This is a linguistics issue. Language isn't defined from the top down, but by common usage. The majority of the English-speaking population don't actually care about SI units or their prefixes, so to write "4,4 megapeople" would be meaningless and confusing to them. They wouldn't know what a megaperson is. However, to write "4.4 million people" is explicit, and in the English language people use "m" as an abbreviation for "million". – megaflop Jun 5 '15 at 15:15
  • Right, that's fine. It's just not a compelling reason to conflate the universal symbol for meter with a language-specific abbreviation for million. Yeah "M" means "mega", but mega equally means 10^6. So to me, "$10M" reads "10 million dollars", just like "$10k" is 10 "thousand" dollars. Lots of international visitors to the site. If I wrote an engineering report using "m" to mean million, it would be changed immediately by the first person who reviewed it. – Paul H Jun 5 '15 at 15:50
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    But, unlike an engineering paper, StackExchange isn't necessarily for the scientific community. There are myriad forums in the SE family which are not of a scientific nature. For me, the reason for using "m" is simple: it is a grammatically correct abbreviation for "million", whereas "M" is not. – megaflop Jun 5 '15 at 16:09
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    @megaflop Good point mflop – 3-14159265358979323846264 Jan 12 '17 at 16:26
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    @3-14159265358979323846264 who is meterflop? – Philipp Apr 27 '17 at 8:34
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    @Philipp :-D excellent skills. My apologies Mflop. – 3-14159265358979323846264 Apr 28 '17 at 9:54
  • @3-14159265358979323846264 I actually thought your use of "mflop" was deliberate and sarcastic, and so I found it rather amusing. – megaflop Apr 28 '17 at 11:43

In the SI system, the standard unit for discrete quantities / number of things isn't "1", or "people", it's the mole ;-)

So, you can write in English, in which case "4.4m people" is a cromulent abbreviation of "4.4 million people", and I think more common than 4.4M. Or else you can use SI units, in which case it's 7.3 attomoles of people. I don't think SI is useful for this purpose, even on Chemistry.

In UX you choose between SI and other English-language conventions as suits you. In this case I don't think there's any good case for the SI prefix M over the English abbreviation of "million" m. They are after all SI prefixes, used before an SI unit. They aren't SI suffixes used after a number. And if they were, then "200m" would be ambiguous between "200 metres" and "0.2". There's nothing to stop you using them that way, 4.4M is comprehensible, but it's not the international standard and it is not more noble than using other numeric abbreviations.

If Stack Exchange were localised for India then it might usefully say 44 lakh or 44L (I haven't checked). In simplified Chinese I think it would be 440万 (I don't know any Chinese, but that's what I see for play counts on video sites and suchlike). Leaving aside moles because they're incomprehensible to real people, there is currently no ratified international standard for writing large numbers. Don't treat 4.4M as if it is one.

  • 1
    I have occasionally mixed up milimetre and megamolar. – TRiG Jun 4 '15 at 15:40
  • To be fair, the "4.4m" you're describing is commonly written as "4.4M", too. I like the lowercase better, myself. But good explanation of what it does and doesn't mean. – Dan Getz Jun 4 '15 at 16:24
  • I will now endeavour to understand moles . thank you – Sarfaraaz Jun 5 '15 at 12:09
  • The mole is a unit of measurement used in chemistry to express amounts of a chemical substance, defined as the amount of any substance that contains as many elementary entities (e.g., atoms, molecules, ions, electrons) as there are atoms in 12 grams of pure carbon-12 Hardly a "generic" quantity unit. – Bartek Banachewicz Jun 5 '15 at 12:10

Abbreviations for million and where they are used seems to not contain a lower-case 'm' . I would normally use the abbreviation 'mil' but it's not on this list either :/

Screenshot of Abbreviations on abbreviations.com

Let's go with 'M' because NASA uses it :D

  • We better need the business one. NASA uses it for Million, whilst we need just million :) No, really, it looks stupid with that small m, capitalize it no matter what. – TLama Jun 5 '15 at 12:19
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    We don't want to be responsible for a rocket crash caused by a suffix confusion, do we? – user1942027 Jun 5 '15 at 13:11
  • @RaphaelMiedl haha. I enjoyed reading that – Sarfaraaz Jun 5 '15 at 14:01

Why not MM, like the financial people use? I believe this comes from Roman numeral M meaning thousand, so 4.4 MM is 4.4 thousand thousand or 4.4 million.

  • 4
    Perhaps no because the financial people use it? MM as Roman numerals would be 2000. – Andrew Morton Jun 5 '15 at 12:31
  • An awful lot of software people are working on code that deals with finances directly or indirectly. – Adrian McCarthy Jun 5 '15 at 15:34

We don't need no SI units 'round here. The m stands for "million" as in "you're one in a million, baby". And you know that you are - but this is still .

Note that on some other sites, the suffixes will be different:


...and in some cases, so will the the scale:


See also: Use 'M' for million instead of 'm'

  • 42
    “We don't need no SI units 'round here.” If it was on Wikipedia, I'd add {{Citation needed}}. The m also stands for meter in SI, mile in British English etc. I'd prefer to comply SI as much as possible to avoid confusion. – Melebius Jun 3 '15 at 9:35
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    At least some sites of the network do (rightly) insist for SI. – nico Jun 3 '15 at 11:11
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    I don't know why people don't like this answer. Use a bit of common sense, we don't have micropeople reached, certainly not miles (unless we lay everyone out in a line, based on the average height), or metres. Can we just focus on something actually worth doing? – Joe Jun 3 '15 at 12:50
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    That mil looks very good to me. – Bergi Jun 3 '15 at 14:30
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    For those interested: 1万 = 10k. – ace_HongKongIndependence Jun 3 '15 at 15:36
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    @Bergi, I don't want to stir things up unnecessarily, but... mil stands for a thousandth of an inch. And is commonly used in say printed circuit board design and electronics packaging. So kind of the people that hang around SE too. (And yes I know it's hard to be misunderstood in context.) – Ghanima Jun 3 '15 at 15:43
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    @Joe: There's a distinction between "well, this would be sort of nice, but it's not a big enough deal yet" and "this isn't something we'll ever do because it is quite wrong". This answer is the second of those. – Nathan Tuggy Jun 3 '15 at 18:40

How about powers of two?


Sufficiently geeky for Stack Overflow and no letters to be confused about. Also, it's kind of programming-related!

  • 14
    That's silly. Every programmer worth his salt knows that 2^32 is better written 100000000000000000000000000000000. ;) – ThisSuitIsBlackNot Jun 3 '15 at 18:40
  • Doesn't work so well elsewhere on the network, but otherwise it's OK-ish. – Nathan Tuggy Jun 3 '15 at 18:42
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    @ThisSuitIsBlackNot oh no 32-bit signed int overflow! – ryanyuyu Jun 3 '15 at 18:42
  • @ThisSuitIsBlackNot I want this as a feature! – LyingOnTheSky Jun 5 '15 at 12:43

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