Talk:billion
Add topicLatest comment: 9 years ago by Dbfirs
I'm pretty sure billion still means million million in the UK and Australia. Is there a source for the information stated here?
- It is true, that the British have been known to call the 'American' billion (10^9) a milliard and call the 'American' trillion (10^12) a billion. Both are accepted in Britain now, our definition does seem to lack this information though. - TheDaveRoss 05:22, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
- The use of 'billion' to refer to a million million is long obsolete in the UK. In 1974 the government of the UK abandoned the long scale, so that the UK now applies the short scale interpretation exclusively in mass media and official usage.[1][2][3] 86.133.176.101 11:30, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
- ^
O'Donnell, Frank (2004 July 30) “Britain's £1 trillion debt mountain - How many zeros is that?”, in The Scotsman newspaper[1], retrieved 2008-01-31
referencing Harold Wilson's 1974 decision to change government usage from the long scale billion to the short scale billion - ^ “Who wants to be a trillionaire?”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)[2], BBC, (Can we date this quote?) - a 2007 BBC page on common modern usage of trillion.
- ^ “Linguist List 7.451”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)[3], (Can we date this quote?)- A 1996 email list message, comparing the two scales usage in different languages.
- That makes it "dated", not "long obsolete". Harold Wilson made that decision for Government usage, but it will take another generation before the previous usage becomes obsolete. Dbfirs 17:16, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
interesting
[edit]the guys at work were having a discution about this , francisco (from mexico) and mario born and raised here in the U.S.a million miillions says francisco , a thousand millions says mario.... I tell em they are both right... but why is football called that name and not soccer , when in latin american countries and Europe soccer is known as football, and football is Amerii=can football.