Americanism?

[Sneekykid]

Why are we using the american definition of a billion? It can get confusing when we are now counting in Trillions! How much is a Trillion? Is it the same as a British Billion or what?
Maybe the French have got it right in refusing to accept any word that isn't French. Should we do this to prevent the dumbing down of our numeric system?

[TCL-MUMPING]

You don't like the use of an Americanism and yet you use the phrase "dumbing down" which is an Americanism.

[Clanad]

A trillion here in the U.S. is 1,000 billion, which is 1,000 million, which is 1,000 thousand... Few, including our newly elected President, have any concept of how much it is...

[ummmm]

I've had a few wines......but does that make sense ^^^ ??

[TCL-MUMPING]

I doubt many folk use the milliard which is a thousand million and is a French word anyway.

[beso]

When the term billion was first applied to 10^12 such a large number was about as useful as a the numeric term google (10^100) is now.

Far from "dumbing down", the use of the term billion to refer to 10^9 is an intelligent choice. Much easier to say 100 billion than 100 thousand million. The long scale term milliard is too phonetically similar to million so I am quite glad we didn't go down the continental path.

Moreover the term British Billion is meaningless. The UK adopted the short scale billion in 1973 and this meaning is used in every English speaking country in the world. There is no ambiguity in contemporary English use. It is incorrect to refer to 10^12 as a billion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_sc ales

English is the superbly expressive language that it is precisely because we did readily adopt words from other languages. Without this practice it would still be a primitive and obscure form of Germanic.

[rojash]

Surely if all countries take a billion to mean the same thing, that leads to less confusion, rather than more?

It's also difficult to see why that could be classed as "dumbing down".

BTH beso, the word is googol :-)

[chakka35]

Yes, a googol - and a googolplex is a one with a googol of noughts after it.

The trouble with this business of saying that ,because many people have started calling a miliard a billion, we must all therefore conform, is that it makes no arithmetical or linguistic sense.

The 'bi' in billion denotes the raising of a million to the power of two, a trillion the raising of a million to the third power and so on. Look what happens with the American version:

A billion is a million to the power of 1 1/2
trillion 2
quadrillion 2 1/2
quintillion 3

...and so absurdly on.

Sorry, but I have too much respect for language to follow sheeplike such a daft system.

In my youth when the press talked of a billion dollars they always used to precede the figure with an 'A' to denote the cheap, plastic American version, not the solid oak British.

The dictionary gives both versions, of course, because dictionaries are there to tell how words are used, not how they should be.

End of pompous lecture.

[chakka35]

Sorry, the spaces in the above didn't come out properly. It should have read (American version):

A billion is a million to the one-and-a-halfth
A trillion is a million to the power of 2
A quadrillion is a million to the two-and-a-halfth
A quintillion is a million to the power of three

...and so absurdly on.

[jake-the-peg]

The definition of a billion as a thousand Million was adopted by the British Government in 1975.

This nonsense is why in science we use standard form,, 1.3x10� etc.

I agree though English should be the de facto lingua franca.

oops!

[chakka35]

Not sure what points you're making here, Jake.

Maybe the government did so adopt in 1975, but are we all so hopeless at thinking for ourselves about our language that we have to trail along behind a lot of largely illiterate and innumerate politicians?

I know what the scientific form is for expressing powers of ten, so what nonsense are you talking about?

I would say that English is now the lingua franca. Oops again!

[jake-the-peg]

My point is that in science we don't get into billions or trillions or ugly words like that which are prone to error

So rather than use a two and a half billion we'd say 2.5x10^9

But billion as a million million is a very small minority you may not like the etymology but it's very definately yesterdays war.

And I don't think I've ever heard anyone use "milliard" in fact doing a quick google search just seems to come up with definitions and I had to get to the 6th page before I found someone using it in anger and he was Danish!

It's as defunct as "short tons"

[Octavius]

For anyone that remembers the Italian Lira, if you didn�t have a 1 billion million zillion Lira note, you didn�t have enough for a packet of fags.

Ok, a slight exaggeration, but you get my drift.

[chakka35]

Jake, it may well be yesterday's war but I fancy myself as a guerilla! In any case I'm not asking others to be correct about it provided that they don't object when I am.

I use 'milliard' mischievously with its correct meaning, knowing that my correspondent is going to have to rush to the dictionary.

More seriously, I know that words change their meanings over time but it seems to me absurd to change the meaning of a word when its correct meaning is built into its structure!.

Would you go along with calling a three-wheeled push-bike a bicycle instead of a tricycle? Would you shrug if it became the fashion to call a horse a biped rather than a quadruped? If we're happy to ignore the origin and implication of a word then we might as well claim that bovine refers to horses, equine to dogs, canine to cats and feline to caterpillars.

Let others go with the fashion. I'll stick to the language I love.

[jake-the-peg]

How about words such as
Biathon
Bigamy
Dysfunctional
Homosexual?

these are all words that are half-latin and half-greek?

do you despise these?

Many other words come from latin and greek where few of us understand their original etymologies or how they have changed.

for example would you deplore repugnant because it originally meant to fight against?

It seems that Billion jars on you because you just so happen to understand this one and how it's deviated from it's original meaning.

I'd suggest that by far the most important function of language is the communication of ideas and as long as we all agree what words mean where they came from is not so important

[Octavius]

Well of course, as a billionaire, I�d be happy to adopt whichever term says I have the most money.

Kerching.

[chakka35]

Mixed-source words is a completely different subject. We are talking here about the meaning built-in to a word.

Would you really be happy to call a tricycle a bicycle? If not, ask yourself why.

'...as long as we all agree...' Precisely.

Anyway, 'nuff said, I think. You say tomayto and I'll say tomato, so to speak, and we'll get on fine.

[kinell]

of course thanks to the jock mafia it looks like we will all be billionaires by next year,

quantitive easing is the b0ll0c�s terminology,

the most expediant method to adopt this policy as all other methods like the 'slashing' of vat by as much as 2.5% have failed miserably is to physically print money................

and plenty of it, the bigger the notes the better,

that is ok then, i am voting labour.....................










out.

[kinell]

of course i meant to type quantitavive,

all av's and tit's, thats labour for you.

[Sneekykid]

Nobody is answering the question - Why should the Western world be coerced to use American terms when the originals have lasted in Europe from before a certain Dalmation got lost going to China!