Sorry, I tried to clarify and only confused the issue. If you use A1 notation (most people do), you use the first formula. If you use R1C1, as I do, you use the second. They're the same statement, just expressed in different ways.

The fact that you didn't notice that the second statement was actually the first (in a different notation) tells me you almost certainly use A1, which after all is what Excel ships in. In that notation you use letters for columns and numbers for rows.

Does that help, or did I just make it worse?