Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2010 June 10

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June 10

Media reporting of numbers

I've just read an article in a newspaper where a cash amount has been given as $5 million. Why is this format used, as '$5 million' is the same as '$5 000 000' or '$5,000,000'. Is this done because newspapers think that people can't understand numbers and can't count, or is there some other reason behind it? --russ (talk) 00:12, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Probably takes less space to print 'million' than all those zeros. Astronaut (talk) 00:38, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I think it's faster to read "million" than to glance at 6 zeroes and be certain that you have subitized 6 zeroes. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:39, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

For the same reason we give distances in kilometers or millimeters instead always stubbornly using the meter. It's better to use an easily-handled small number than an equivalent large number.

They don't think we couldn't figure it out. Heck we could work it out if they gave us the number in nickles. They do it for the purposes of clarity and easy-reading. APL (talk) 00:54, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

There is a phrase, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth." That sort of thinking or related thinking might be involved here in addition to the other answers given. The longer version involving all numerals might seem to suggest scrutinizing the amount of money too closely. It is a gift, in this instance.

It is also a round number, so I think the other responses apply. Also, I think one form (all digits) conveys a materialistic approach to reporting the event, and another form (digit plus word) is a more "humanistic" approach. [User:Bus stop|Bus stop]] (talk) 01:05, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

There's also a weird implication of precision if you use all those digits. "$5,000,000" tends to imply exactly that much money. Not $5,000,001 not $4,999,999. There's no easy way to write $5,000,000 out while also indicating that some or all of the zeros are not significant figures. Writing it as "$5 Million" or even just "$5M" lets you sidestep that issue and get right to the point of your story which is that a large sum of money was just awarded, spent, wasted, etc. APL (talk) 01:45, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

"$5M" is often used to mean "$5,000" (M for Mille, which means thousand), with "$5MM" for "$5,000,000". However, you are far from alone in thinking M should stand for Million. Therefore, I would advise against using "M" is this context. Either write out "million" in full, or use a lowercase "m". --Tango (talk) 02:22, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't doubt you, but where is this used? Aaronite (talk) 03:00, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

To be honest, not in many places as far as I can tell. The Wikimedia Foundation uses it, though, and they insist it is common. I disagree about its commonality, but I doubt they are completely making it up. --Tango (talk) 03:21, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

"$5M" for "Five Million Dollars" seems pretty common in newspaper headlines. Perhaps in other contexts (Scientific? Historic?) it means thousand, but I think it's safe to say that in a headline it will always mean million. APL (talk) 04:36, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Most newspapers (etc) I know would use K for 1000. eg. "$5K" Gwinva (talk) 09:54, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I see MM for "million" all the time in business presentations. It's a curiosity at this point because, as Gwinva states, everyone uses "K" for "thousand" and nobody uses "M" for "thousand" — it's just the "mille" oddity that Tango describes above. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:32, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

APL, you talk of a "weird implication of precision if you use all those digits". I'd go further than that. It's not an implication but an outright declarative statement; and it's not weird to ask numbers to do the work they're designed to do. Let me explain: if I enquired about the price of a relatively small aircraft and was told, in writing, "Five million dollars", I would take it that the price was roughly $5,000,000 but not necessarily exactly that amount. Maybe slightly lower or slightly higher. But if I was told "$5,000,000", that would tell me the price is exactly that. I would even quibble if they then charged me $5,000,000.75, because that was not the price they quoted me. I guess my theory is undermined somewhat by the common tendency to be over-specific when detailing monetary amounts. By that, I mean cases like "This machine takes either $1.00 or $2.00 coins". Well, duh. What's the point of specifying zero cents when there's no such thing as a coin that has a face value of $1 or $2 plus some cents! It should say "This machine takes either $1 or $2 coins". So, it's possible that the person telling me the price of the aircraft was also falling into the excess-specificity trap; maybe the real price was $4,998,678 but they just said "five million" for the sake of convenience, but instead of writing "five million dollars", they wrote "$5,000,000". Maybe. But in the absence of other evidence, I'd treat these responses the way I've outlined. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 11:13, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I disagree categorically with the suggestion that "$5,000,000" implies any different precision than "$5 million" or "five million dollars". The choice is purely a matter of which one the writer thinks the reader will find easier to read. Whether a number is read as exact or not is determined by context. Jack gives the example of asking for a price quotation and receiving a written answer; a written price quotation should be taken as exact. But if the same number occurs in the context of something like a lottery payoff (the kind that is calculated rather than a pre-announced round number), common sense requires the assumption that it was rounded or was an estimate in round numbers.

Incidentally, the other day I saw the number "$12G" in a newspaper headline. It meant $12,000 ("12 grand"), but I had trouble keeping myself from reading it as $12 billion (metric prefix giga-). These one-letter abbreviations are indeed tricky. --Anonymous, 16:20 UTC, June 10, 2010.

I agree that written quotes should be exact. "$5,000,000" is exact. "$5,000,000.00" is even more exact. But "Five million dollars" and nothing more is rather more open to interpretation. Often, quoted prices will be in both words and numbers so that there's no possibility of misunderstanding; but just "Five million dollars" with no numbers looks like someone's conveniently rounded the true price to the nearest handy figure. I would certainly be seeking confirmation of the exact cost if that was the quote I was given, and I would expect it to be a little different from exactly $5,000,000.00. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:47, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

The usual rule is that, in informal prose, trailing zeros are insignificant. --Tango (talk) 21:00, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Simple answer: We don't want readers to have to count the zeroes to know if it's a million or 10 million or a hundred thousand. And it takes up less space. Newspaper style is all about clarity and space. And this symbol: $ means "US dollar." So "$5 million" is the shortest, easiest-to-read way to print the amount "five million dollars" AND be precise about it. "$5.4 million" is exactly 5,400,000 U.S. dollars, and so on. DavidH (talk) 01:23, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

So I guess that "$5x10⁶" isn't likely to catch on anytime soon then?! That's a shame because it's even shorter than "$5 million" - and in the case of $5x10⁹ less likely to be confused than $5 billion - which means different things on either side of the Atlantic. SteveBaker (talk) 01:44, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Don't see it happening. But billion is not particularly ambiguous when talking about money (at least in English), not since The Economist signed on to the short scale. The Economist also writes just $5M or $5B as a matter of course (that's actually how I got used to that notation). --Trovatore (talk) 02:23, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

You can also confuse everyone who doesn't come from South Asia, and write 50 lakh. But what's confusing to me in English is placing the currency sign before the number because it's not the order in which you read it; just try reading aloud "$5", line break, "million"... — Kpalion^(talk) 08:28, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

That issue is discussed at Talk:Currency sign#Position of currency sign. Essentially, it seems to be a fraud prevention practice of sorts. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 09:30, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Non-breaking spaces. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:04, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

CONSERVATIVE FUNDS

CAN A CONSERVATIVE CLUB INVEST SOME OF THE CLUB FUNDS —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.178.16.196 (talk) 14:08, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Hello. Firstly, please don't type in all capitals - on the Internet it's considered the equivalent of shouting. It would also be nice if you followed the instructions at the top of the page and typed four tildes after the post so we know where the post came from and when. Secondly, I presume you are referring to a club affiliated to the Conservative Party in the UK? The following answer is UK specific. Basically, a lot depends on what is in the constitution, or rules, of the club itself. If the constitution specifically mentions that the commmittee has powers to invest the monies of the club on behalf of the club's members, then yes it does. These are known as explicit powers. There are things called "implicit powers", and it may be argued in a court of law that the committee has the duty of care towards its members to ensure the best possible use of its funds for its members, which may well include investing some of its funds in property, bonds, shares etc. It would, however, be unwise for the committee to rely on these implicit powers. --TammyMoet (talk) 14:13, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

You might find some information on this page of the Association of Conservative Clubs website. Unfortunately I can't be certain or any more specific than this due to blocks on my internet connection. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 15:46, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Mobile Phone Radios

Why are the radio sets built into mobile phones and iPods incapable of receiving Medium Wave frequencies? --T.M.M. Dowd (talk) 15:41, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

For those who may need to look up medium wave (as I did), it's the frequency band used for AM radio, as contrasted with the FM radio receivers in many mobile phones. Anyway, the question is answered by the distinction laid out above. Phones, etc, if equipped with radio receivers, are equipped with FM receivers, which are not cross-compatible with AM receivers. So adding the capability to receive AM signals would require an additional component at some additional cost. So there's first the tradeoff of "does another receiver fit?", then "do we want to lose profits or raise prices to account for it?" Throw in that AM is generally the second-tier (at best) radio system these days, and that radio isn't the primary (or even secondary or tertiary) function of these devices, I don't find it surprising that most manufacturers don't bother. But fundamentally, the answer to "why?" is "because" -- and barring detailed conversations with who knows how many people involved in the process, repeated across who knows how many companies, we can't say for sure. — Lomn 16:20, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Couldn't find anything definitive through Google and I've forgotten all the 3rd and 4th year telecomms I learnt, but I suspect the other reason (beside the rubbish quality of AM radio in urban areas) is that the size of the antenna (it needs to be approx. 1/4 wavelength to be at resonant frequency) could be too long for the typical earphone cord length? (Actually compared to a car aerial it seems about the same length and car radios pick up AM just fine. Now I'm starting to doubt myself.) Lomn's reasoning is probably spot on. Zunaid 17:04, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I thought it was because Medium Wave was an older frequency...never mind. Chevymontecarlo 18:14, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

"Because" is not an appropriate answer. An AM antenna does not need to be some absurd 1/4 wavelength physically, unless you want to transmit on AM at MW frequencies. They have used little ferrite loopsticks for many decades. Earphones or telescoping metallic antennas are for FM. A loopstick antenna or even a little could be easily built in to a cell phone if any demand existed. Edison (talk) 02:44, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

My cheap little transistor radio picks up both AM and FM just fine. Presumably it's simply a lack-of-demand issue where iPhones and such are concerned. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:03, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I really don't see the problem with summarizing as "because" given the multiplicity of ways that "why" can spread out. Because AM and FM radios use different receivers? Because they use different antenna types? Because the manufacturer didn't want to pay for an extra receiver? Because they didn't want to pay for an extra antenna? Because they couldn't physically fit one or the other? Because they didn't want to budget the power? Because they didn't want to budget the user interface complexity? Because the design team never considered it? Because there's not enough demand? Because marketing says it makes the product look outdated? Because an autocratic executive vetoed it? Because the manufacturer would rather partner with a for-pay radiolike service than provide free over-the-air content? Because there's collusion with the Illuminati to get people to only listen to mind-control FM radio? Because there's collusion against the Illuminati to protect people from mind-control AM radio? After getting past the discussion of AM and FM as separate technologies, and that reception of one doesn't guarantee reception of the other, we can't possibly answer for any product, let alone all of them. — Lomn 13:47, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

FM radio is just a tiny chip (actually portion of a chip also doing other things) and a few tiny surface mount passive components. AM receiver takes much more space. Baseball Bug's transistor radio just about certainly has a loopstick antenna inside, using a lot more space than a few tiny SMT parts. 75.57.243.88 (talk) 16:08, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

R.M.S. Royal Edward ports of call

I'm doing some geneological research on my family and I'd like to know if the ship Royal Edward included Sault Ste Marie, Canada as a port of call. This would be in the year of 1913. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hudakore (talk • contribs) 16:07, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

We have an article on the HMT Royal Edward which seems to be the same ship. Bear in mind that the St. Lawrence Seaway was only opened in 1959; ocean-going ships could travel no further than Montreal until then. --Xuxl (talk) 16:28, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

A bit more information here[1] and here[2]. Alansplodge (talk) 17:05, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Since this was an oceangoing ship, it could not have traveled up the Saint Lawrence River (and through the Great Lakes) to Sault Ste. Marie in 1913. However, there is no reason that a passenger couldn't have disembarked at Halifax, St. John, or Montreal and then continued by rail to Sault Ste. Marie. Marco polo (talk) 18:20, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Women/Feminist News and Media

Looking for alternative/s to mainstream womens magazines and Ms magazine? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mybodymyself (talk • contribs) 23:18, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

You might be interested in these feminist blog lists: feminist blogs, Take Part. Marco polo (talk) 00:20, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

See http://directory.google.com/Top/Society/People/Women/News_and_Media/. -- Wavelength (talk) 01:11, 11 June 2010 (UTC)