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How would you punctuate this:
"2 point something billion dollar job"?
I'm editing for a court reporter and he says this: "That's not much on a 2 point something billion dollar job." I am unsure how to punctuate that correctly. This is my guess: "2-point-something billion dollar job."
The answer to this depends on what style guide you're using. If you were to refer to Chicago Manual of Style, for instance, I believe the best way to write this would be "two-point-something-billion-dollar job." The entire dollar amount modifies the word job, so it should all be hyphenated.
If you were to reduce the dollar amount all the way down to $2, you would write this phrase as a "two-dollar job" (again, per Chicago), so it follows that the words billion and dollar should be hyphenated in your example phrase, too.
Make sure to also check your style guide's rules on spelling out numbers versus using ordinals. Most style guides spell out at least numbers one to nine.
The common way (in the US) to indicate that a cost is an amount over the integer, but less than the next integer is to use the + symbol, as in a $2+ billion job or a 2+ billion dollar deal
Supplement
If you have a specific integer + decimal amount, then it would usually be written just that way. For example, If the amount were $2,300,000,000 you could write $2.3 billion deal or 2.3 billion dollar deal.
Note that in both examples, if you use the $ symbol, you omit the word dollars in the text.
