What is magnitude as applied to real life?

Also, the book I'm teaching myself from seems to say that vectors are only measured by their endpoints. This seems very, very odd given that their endpoint is only a scalar. I suspect that the direction portion of the vector is given numerically by its magnitude, although the book doesn't come out and say it.

Am I right?

The magnitude of a vector is the linear distance between the end points.
The direction is an entirely different animal.

I could have something that was 10<30 deg. That's not written quite right. The less than sign would be flat and I'd use the degree symbol. My entity is 10 units at an angle of 30 degrees so I'll rewrite as 10@30deg.

Example: 2 people are pushing at 110 newtons each on an object weighing 100 kg The force due to gravity is mg, what is the resultant force on the object.

220@0 deg + 100*9.8@-90deg