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"Mil" as unit of measurement

epigene

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Hi everyone!

I finally got a question to ask both British and American native speakers...

In a report on stock listing in Hong Kong compared with UK, Singapore and Australia, there is a table showing listing fees as percentage of funds raised.

The monetary unit used in the table is HK$ mil
At first glance, I assumed that the term "mil" is abbreviation for million (i.e., __ million Hong Kong dollars), but is "mil" a unit that stands for "thousand" in British English?

According to Free Dictionary definition, "mil" appears to be used for dimensional measurements. How about money?

Thanks in advance for your help!
 
Personally, I don't know, but here's what Wikipedia has to say:

Mil - Wikipedia
 
Interesting!

When writing figures and to shorten the length I often see this "mil." for million, also in case of thousand K (from kilo?) seems to be used. (e.g. 260K for 260,000).

I did not know the usage of mil otherwise, so I'm very much interested to know the answer too.

---edit ---
Oh, I missed your post Mikawa Ossann, while I was writing mine... thanks for the link!
 
My first instinct is that it means million there, but I can't be sure without seeing the item itself. I know that mil can be used sometimes as an abbreviation for million in American English.

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Hmm, actually after looking at MO's link, it appears that 1 mil is one-tenth of a HK$ cent. That is 1HK$ = 1000 mil. Maybe that's what they're getting at.
 
Funny, I just saw the same thing today for the first time.

I bought a Asian art magazine printed in Hong Kong. On the cover it says HK$98.00/US$16.00. Inside it says a one year subscription is HK$650/US$85. Today was the first time I had ever seen anything marked in HK dollars.

Uncle Frank

☝
 
A little off topic, but this is what Wikipedia has to say about K for 1000.


Apparently mil has quite a few meanings, as does K.
 
undrentide said:
Interesting!

When writing figures and to shorten the length I often see this "mil." for million, also in case of thousand K (from kilo?) seems to be used. (e.g. 260K for 260,000).
Click to expand...

Yes, if I had seen a dot after mil (mil.), I wouldn't be asking this question, since it would then be clearly an abbreviation for million.

I can't determine whether "mil" stands for million or thousand because "__ million HK dollars" appears to be too large and "__thousand HK dollars" seems too small as stock value or funds procured by business enterprises in the table...
 
Last edited:

Here is what I found; hope it helps:
The basic unit of the Hong Kong dollar is dollar (ﾅ｡ﾂ｢ for a formal form; 窶ｰﾃ｡ in spoken Cantonese, perhaps a transliteration of the first syllable of "money", but some suggest that the character is the corruption of ﾃ｣m; also ﾅ陳ｳ for a less formal form). One dollar is divided into 100 cents (ﾂ静･ on the reverse side of discontinued coins and in spoken Cantonese, a transliteration of ﾂ"centﾂ", 窶｢ﾂｪ in Mandarin). Ten cents is called 1 ho in Chinese (ﾅｸ| on the reverse side and in spoken Cantonese, ﾅｸ|ﾅｽq in colloquial speech, ﾅ?p in Mandarin). One mil (one-tenth cent) was known as 1 man or 1 tsin in Cantonese (窶｢ﾂｶ or ﾂ静ｧ on reserve side of discontinued coins, in spoken Cantonese and Mandarin). The largest denomination of the present-day Hong Kong currency is the one thousand-dollar note, whereas the smallest is the ten-cent coin.
 
millennium is 1000 years so...
 
The only use I have heard for use in terms of money is a Million. From reading the first post it sounds like a million Hong Kong Dollars. Also the word most used for a thousand in money terms is a 'Grand', it is more of a slang term.

'Mil' is also used as a measurement in two uses, the first is very common, it is short for 'Centimeters', withing the building trade you would hear 'Mil' being used a great deal.

Secondly 'Mil' is used in Military terms when aiming and firing weapons. I have heard gunners say that they are off target and they need to change the trajectory by two or three mils.
 
Thanks for the responses!

I wanted to know especially what British English speakers think, since someone told me that "mil" might be used to mean "thousand" in British English, though I found nothing suggesting that in dictionaries I've checked.

Thanks again!
 
Is the table somewhere where we can see it online. It still seems like the most likely one is mil = 1/10 cent = 1/1000 HKD
 
JimmySeal said:
Is the table somewhere where we can see it online. It still seems like the most likely one is mil = 1/10 cent = 1/1000 HKD
Click to expand...
Thank you so much, JimmySeal.
Unfortunately, the table belongs to a confidential report that I cannot disclose online.

The table shows a list of stock exchange listing fees required in Australia, Singapore and UK SEs.
An example is:
Market capitalisation at listing (HK$ mil): 5000

This part of the report discusses the high level of US listing fee (around 7%) vis-a-vis the countries mentioned (approx. 2% or less).

Considering the nature of the discussion, "mil" very likely is million since HK$5000 million (figure given as market capitalization estimate for a large business corporation) is around US$640 million??
 
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