And.
When presenting financial values.
Or even writing them.
We want to avoid seeing numbers which are very long.
For example, if the number is 13,254,196, I don't want to have to say that entire number in a presentation.
It takes too long to do that.
I interrupt the flow of the conversation and people have little patience in waiting for you to recite
this long number.
We need a better way to refer to these large numbers.
We need to abbreviate these numbers so that we can refer to them quickly without interrupting the flow
of the presentation.
How to do that.
We'll be looking at in this lecture.
Abbreviating large numbers when making verbal reference to a large number, say, during a presentation
or meeting, and especially when the participants can see the number written.
It is helpful to abbreviate the number so that it can be referenced quickly without unduly interrupting
the flow of the presentation.
There are three basic strategies to abbreviate a large number.
Strategy one.
If the number is close to but less than an even number that ends in zeros, then say that even number
preceded with any of the following.
Just under.
Almost approximately.
Roughly.
About or around.
If the number is close to but more than an even number that ends in zeros, then say that even number
preceded with any of the following.
Just above.
Just over.
Approximately.
Roughly.
About or around.
Let's look at some examples.
This number here, 119,739.
If I'm in a presentation and I need to make reference to that number, that's a lot of things to say.
I don't want to use up too much time saying all of that.
So I will abbreviate this number.
I notice that this number is very close to 120,000.
120,000 is a nice even number has a lot of zeros in it.
So it's close to that number, but not quite.
So I can say just under 120,000.
I could also say almost 120,000.
And of course, I could say approximately 120,000 or roughly 120,000.
About around 120,000.
Look at the next example.
11,937,203.
That's a lot to say, and I don't want to have to repeat that entire number during a presentation,
say, because I might lose the momentum of the presentation.
Looking at this number, I see that it's very close to 12 million.
12 million is a nice even number.
It's not quite 12 million.
So I can say roughly 12 million.
I can also say just under 12 million or almost 12 million or any one of these other words preceding
the 12 million.
And then finally, this number, 1297.
I don't know if you are aware of this, but in English, when we have a four digit number that ends
in zero zero, we call this number 1300.
So as another example to 500, which is 2500, it's more common to see 2500.
This number here is 1300 and you can say 1300, but in practice, it's more common to refer to this
number as 1300.
People have in their immediate identification with that number.
So this is an even number in the sense that it ends in some zeros here.
So if I look at this number here, 1297, then I think, oh, that's almost 1300 or just under 1300
or about 1300.
So this is one strategy.
If it's close to an even number, we'll reference that even number with something preceding it.
Let's look at strategy to.
Change the units accordingly and round to the nearest one or two decimals.
This is especially useful for very large numbers that are not close to an even number.
Take a look at this first example.
35,893,449.
Well, that's not close to 35 million.
It's really not that close to 36 million either.
So I cannot use strategy one.
So I think what I'll do is I will refer to this number in millions and I'll just round it to one decimal.
And if I do that, it's 35.9 million.
So if I'm referring to this large number in a presentation, I don't want to say this whole number.
I'll just say 35.9 million.
This number, 1,350,126.
Well, that's not close to an even number.
So here again, I think I'll state this number in millions and round to a decimal.
In this case, with the five year, I might want to keep two decimals to be a little bit more accurate.
And I'll refer to this number as 1.35 million.
This third example is when rounding and changing units becomes extremely helpful.
Look at the size of this number.
36,294,471,765.
Well, I don't want to say all of that in a presentation.
I need a quick way to refer to this number.
I think I'll put this number in units of billions and I will round to one decimal place.
And if I do that, it's 36.3 billion.
All right.
Let's look at a third strategy here.
If the number is close to being a fraction of a large even number, then expressed as that fraction
preceded with any of the following, as is appropriate, just under almost just above, just over,
approximately, roughly about or around.
So if you remember strategy one, if it's close to an even number, we'll reference that even number
and say quote Approximately.
But if it's close to a fraction of an even number, then we'll use that fraction.
And the kinds of fractions that we're talking about are one quarter.
One half.
Three quarters.
One third and two thirds.
That's about it.
If you start referring to a number and saying, Oh, that's 1/16 of a million, no one is going to understand
that.
Right?
Or 3/8 of a billion.
Many people will have difficulty understanding what that number is.
So we'll just stick to those simple fractions.
Let's take a look at an example.
This number, 251,338.
Well, that's not close to an even number, like 200,000 or 300,000.
It's not close to that.
But I notice that this is close to 250,000 and 250,000 is one quarter of a million.
And if I say to someone a quarter of a million, they immediately know what that number is.
So I'm going to use that as our reference.
A quarter of a million is 250,000.
This is a little bit above that.
So I'll just say that this number here is just over a quarter of a million.
I might also say approximately or about a quarter of a million.
Take a look at this next one.
1,498,759.
Well, that's not close to 1 million is not close to 2 million.
But I notice that this 498,750 was pretty close to 500,000, which is half a million.
So then I might refer to this number as being almost one and a half million or just under one and a
half million.
Remember that one and a half million is 1,500,000.
So this is just underneath that.
And finally, look at this one 5,330,025.
What can we do with that?
Well, it's not that close to 5 million.
It's really not close to 6 million.
It's not even that close to five and a half million.
But this 330,025, that's pretty close to one third of a million.
Remember, that one third is .33, three, three, three.
All threes.
Right.
So then I might refer to this number as five and a third million.
Now a third would be 5 million.
Three, three, three, three, three, three.
So this number is just under that.
So I can say just under five and one third million.
I could say roughly five and one third million.
So those are our three strategies for abbreviating large numbers.
Being able to refer to that number quickly in a verbal presentation.
Let's put that in practice now by looking at an exercise.