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baby carriage
first grade
Mar 1, 2011 03:20
13 yrs ago
English term

1,000,000,000

Non-PRO Not for points English Other General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters
Another question for British English speakers: what do you call this number? I'm not going to prejudice anyone by mentioning what I've read in other sources; I just want to hear what your natural response is.
Responses
4 +12 Now, a billion. Formerly, a thousand million
References
time is a great changer :)

Discussion

AllegroTrans Mar 1, 2011:
#
Long and short scales - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

* Comparison|
* History|
* Current usage|
* Notes on current usage

The word " milliard", or its translation, is found in many European languages and ... In long scale countries, " milliard" was redefined down to its current value of ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales - 159k - Cached
Deborah Kolosova (asker) Mar 1, 2011:
It's interesting that the Wikipedia article doesn't even mention a thousand million, even though it was in use not so long ago.
Deborah Kolosova (asker) Mar 1, 2011:
Yes, that's the source I saw the information about milliard being archaic in, but I wanted to check it out with some UK natives.
David Hollywood Mar 1, 2011:
The term milliard can also be used to refer to 1000000000; this terminology is rarely used in English outside of archaic British English and is rare even ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1000000000_(number) - Cached - Similar►
David Hollywood Mar 1, 2011:
"milliard" did really exist and we have the German "Milliarden" to vouch for it but I suppose we have to accept what is standard these days :)
Deborah Kolosova (asker) Mar 1, 2011:
Now that I've gotten a couple spontaneous responses, I'll tell you the word I was curious about. I've heard in the past that in the UK they use the word "milliard" to designate the number in question, but then more recently when I came up against this question I did some research and read that the word "milliard" is now considered archaic. However, since in the past few days I've been polling British speakers for their input, I decided to check the accuracy of what I had read. But neither of you even mentioned the word "milliard"; was it really ever in use in the UK?

Responses

+12
47 mins
Selected

Now, a billion. Formerly, a thousand million

When I was at school in the 1940s, a billion meant a million million. A billion meaning a thousand million was US English only. But as in many other things, the American usage became more and more widely accepted after the war, and from some time during the fifties or sixties, billion came to mean a thousand million here too, and nowadays no-one thinks of it as anything else.
Peer comment(s):
agree David Hollywood : removed mine and in the same time space as you so fine by me :)
7 mins
Thank you.
agree Yasutomo Kanazawa
40 mins
Thank you.
agree Paul Lambert : Yes. I still wonder what the rationale behind the US convention is. The old way was much more systematic. The prefix clearly indicated the powers of million. Million to the power of 2 was billion, to the power of 3 trillion etc. Alas.
2 hrs
Thank you. The old way may have been more systematic, but by the time you get up to quadrillions and quintillions, the number of zeroes would have been really astronomical, and numbers between them would have taken a long time to say!
agree Andrei Vrabtchev : yes, billion
3 hrs
Thank you.
agree Sarah Bessioud
4 hrs
Thank you.
agree Allison Wright (X) : In countries with hyperinflation (like Zimbabwe) it was useful to have a name for something when another three zeroes appeared on a price. Saying numbers was easy, e.g. "$2,4 trillion" for an apple. In business rounding to the nearest "quad" was used.
4 hrs
Thank you. Other countries with near-zero interest rates and "quantitative easing" could go the same way.
agree Phong Le
6 hrs
Thank you.
agree B D Finch : I too regret the victory of the irrational here, but it was even worse having constant misunderstanding about what a "billion" was.
8 hrs
Thank you. Yes, I remember that period of confusion too.
agree airmailrpl : -
9 hrs
Thank you.
agree eesegura
10 hrs
Thank you.
agree AllegroTrans
13 hrs
Thank you.
agree Thayenga
1 day 5 hrs
Thank you.
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Reference comments

55 mins
Reference:

time is a great changer :)
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