import - Why does ImportString["1c", "Table"] eat the letter c?

I have some whitespace-separated matrix data that I read with Import[..., "Table"]. The data contained mixed strings and numbers (the strings are for row and column names).

I noticed this weird behaviour:

ImportString["123c", "Table"]

(* ==> {{123}} *)

Mathematica ate the letter c!! Why?

It doesn't eat any other letters:

ImportString["123a", "Table"]
(* {{"123a"}} *)


ImportString["123e", "Table"]
(* {{"123e"}} *)

What is the explanation and what is a good workaround?

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Update:

It seems that this happens even if the labels is quoted in the file:

ImportString["\"24c\"", "CSV"]

(* ==> {{24}} *)

Answer

Mathematica is interpreting c as a currency marker. This is controlled by the "CurrencyTokens" import option for "Table".

The default setting for "CurrencyTokens" is

{{"$ ", "£", "¥", "€"}, {"c ", "¢", "p ", "F "}}

so this also happens with the letters p or F.

The workaround is

ImportString["123c", "Table", "CurrencyTokens" -> None]
(* {{"123c"}} *)

Notice: The same applies to the "CSV", "TSV" and "List" import formats.