A percentage is a dimensionless number, but percent is still a unit. Just think about how you use it. Something can increase by 5 students, or it can increase by 15%.
Regardless, is “m” standing for a concrete measure and ”%” for a proportional one really the source of since confusion and anger? What about db, or decibel? It’s a measure of the ratio of quantities on a logarithmic scale, and is regularly applied to sound, electricity and other values. Is it as confusing?
In all your examples, k is a prefix to the unit. You can have 1 km, or 1 kdB. But there’s no such thing as a kilopercent and that’s not how it was used in the title. It was the common informal shortening of 1000 to 1k. So it wasn’t 1(k%), it was (1k)%. Which is an odd combination. It’s not confusing, everyone understood what was meant, but it’s still stupid and unnecessary.
Okay. And as I said, I don’t really get hung up on number formatting if the meaning was clear.
If it’s not confusing, and it was understandable, why in hell do you care enough to argue about it even if it wasn’t the style you’d prefer?
There’s also “no such thing” as a decibel, since a bel is also not an official SI unit. Yet we all understood what you meant when you said kilodecibel (instead of the more formally proper “hectobel”) despite it not being an SI unit and being two si prefixes attached improperly.
I fail to see the meaningful distinction between one thousand-percent and one-thousand percent. I agree that they used a common abbreviation for a number. I just don’t actually care, which is what I said to the person incredulous that someone could not be upset.
A percentage is a dimensionless number, but percent is still a unit. Just think about how you use it. Something can increase by 5 students, or it can increase by 15%.
Regardless, is “m” standing for a concrete measure and ”%” for a proportional one really the source of since confusion and anger? What about db, or decibel? It’s a measure of the ratio of quantities on a logarithmic scale, and is regularly applied to sound, electricity and other values. Is it as confusing?
In all your examples, k is a prefix to the unit. You can have 1 km, or 1 kdB. But there’s no such thing as a kilopercent and that’s not how it was used in the title. It was the common informal shortening of 1000 to 1k. So it wasn’t 1(k%), it was (1k)%. Which is an odd combination. It’s not confusing, everyone understood what was meant, but it’s still stupid and unnecessary.
Okay. And as I said, I don’t really get hung up on number formatting if the meaning was clear.
If it’s not confusing, and it was understandable, why in hell do you care enough to argue about it even if it wasn’t the style you’d prefer?
There’s also “no such thing” as a decibel, since a bel is also not an official SI unit. Yet we all understood what you meant when you said kilodecibel (instead of the more formally proper “hectobel”) despite it not being an SI unit and being two si prefixes attached improperly.
I fail to see the meaningful distinction between one thousand-percent and one-thousand percent. I agree that they used a common abbreviation for a number. I just don’t actually care, which is what I said to the person incredulous that someone could not be upset.