You may be wondering, okay, why are you asking a question if you know it’s easy? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s because I’ve been proofreading documents produced by a private investment bank for the past 10 hours and my brain has been turned to mush by having to read and edit the nearly incomprehensible language known as Bankerese, not to mention having to double-check multiple pie charts including several that should add up to 100%, but don’t, because my clients screwed up. (And they’re the financial experts!)
Having lost what remains of my sentience, I turn to you with a nagging issue. I’m staring in a mute haze at a graph consisting of two numbers, one of which is very obviously missing a digit. Now as a proofreader, I can just add the note “Missing a digit” in the margin and I’m sure that would be fine, but I’d rather be able to give them the correct figure. But I cannot fathom what formula to use. And I know it shouldn’t be this hard!
Here are the knowns:
a) First number: $2,981,075
b) Second number: $2,413,39 (this is the one missing a digit, as you can see)
c) The graph claims that there’s a 15% differential between these two numbers.
My first instinct was to calculate 15% of $2,981,075, which is $447,161.25. Then I subtracted that from $2,981,075. But it got me $2,533,913.75. Clearly my instinct was way wrong.
So please, please tell me: what’s the right formula for working this out? And better yet, what’s that stupid mofo of a missing digit supposed to be? Pretty please? I am barely able to keep my eyes open to finish editing the regular text, much less add math into the, uh, equation.
Many thanks if anyone read this far.