Hi. The Chicago Manual of Style lists "$3–$5 million" (with the en dash) for a range. If we go a step further, would the following work? a $3–$5 million a year contract a $50–$100 million per year industry I don't think "million" needs to be used twice in these phrases, e.g., a $3 million–$5 million a year contract, because I don't think anybody in this world would interpret $3 to mean "three dollars" in the first example, or $50 to mean "fifty dollars" in the second example. Agreed? 1. Are my two original examples above punctuated correctly? 2. Could I use a hyphen (e.g., a $3-$5 million a year contract; a $50-$100 million per year industry) instead of the en dash? Thank you.
I'd have to see it in context to tell whether I'd be confused before I got to the 'million.' Probably not. I could live with these, especially if it was a fast-moving context, such as a newspaper story. However, another way to write this would be a 'three to five million-dollar-per-year contract.' The phrase is technically a compound adjective, so would require hyphenation.
