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I was reading the back cover of Donald Trump's book The Art Of The Deal and found these lines:
He isolates the common elements in his greatest deals; he shatters myths; he names names, spells out the zeros, and fully reveals the deal-maker's art.
So what does the phrase spells out the zeros mean? And is this phrase still in use or is it dated? Thanks.
Not a common phrase, and to me, an American native English speaker, it's meaning is unclear. Possibly whoever wrote that thinks they worded something cleverly. I can only guess that the meaning is either that he gives the dollar amounts (how many zeros, as in how many millions or billions of dollars) for the deals he's made, or, since he "names names", he also tells ("spells out")what people were "zeroes", implying they were worthless or of no help to anyone in making good deals. But, again, the meaning is not clear at all to me, and the wording is strange.
Since the rest of the sentence is trying to promote the author's ability to teach the chosen subject, spell out the zeroes could relate to being able to clarify ambiguous terms.
In particular, some people use(d) the word billion to mean a thousand million, and others, a million million (there are efforts to make the word consistent across the pond). By 'spelling out' (listing) the zeroes in the number, it becomes clear which number one means.
