billion vs. million
John Andrisan
word "billion" in England vs. America?
john
MasterCougar
posted news:3EF1C948...@pacbell.net:
> Does anyone know the origin or reason for the difference in the use of
> the word "billion" in England vs. America?
>
Normal language drift, caused by having no fast communication
between the two? Look at how words change meaning over time, partially
due to the ignorants who missuse them. How people equate, for example
U.F.O with flying saucer. Or how faggot went from meaning stick of wood
to male homosexual.
--
Marc,
This is where I would normally put a funny sig, but now I just don't have
it in me.
Lungfish
andr...@pacbell.net wrote on 6/19/03 7:31 AM:
> Does anyone know the origin or reason for the difference in the use of the
> word "billion" in England vs. America?
>
We discovered a new way to think.
No, really, I don't know the origin, but the reason is pretty obvious,
The English system seems based on the idea that a new term is needed only
when an earlier one would have to be repeated, e.g. "thousand million" for
10^9 is OK, but "million million" for 10^12 is to be avoided, and replaced
with "billion". The same with "trillion", which is a "billion billion"
(10^24) in the English system (with "billion" meaning "million million"),
while it's a "thousand billion" (10^12), that is, a "thousand thousand
million", in the American system.
While the American system is based on limiting the modifiers of larger
orders of magnitude to "one", "ten", and "hundred". So we get a new term
every third exponent of ten, viz:
ten 10^1
hundred 10^2
thousand 10^3
ten thousand 10^4
hundred thousand 10^5
million 10^6
ten million 10^7
hundred million 10^8
billion 10^9 (English "thousand million")
ten billion 10^10 (English "ten thousand million")
hundred billion 10^11 (English "hundred thousand million")
trillion 10^12 (English "billion").
As you can see, the English system ends up with huge piles of words as you
begin to discuss real money: "hundred thousand million billion trillion" for
10^(2+3+6+12+24), which would be a simple "hundred quindecillion" in the
American system.
Adrian Bailey
news:3EF1C948...@pacbell.net...
> Does anyone know the origin or reason for the difference in the use of the
> word "billion" in England vs. America?
My hunch is that because dollars were (and still are - just) smaller than
pounds, Americans had more need to describe amounts of thousands of millions
and the decision was taken to call these amounts billions in order to save
time. And it caught on. No-one thought that there would ever be much need to
use the word in its true sense of a million million!
Adrian
Nicholas Widdows
first used by Locke in 1690. Changed to a thousand million in French in
early 18th century. The US took on the French sense for some reason, not
sure when. France reverted to million million in 1948. British government
started using it as thousand million in 1974.
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Billion and also the links at the
bottom of that. Oh wait, one of the links is back to this newsgroup.
John Dean
OED is your friend :
<< a. F. billion, purposely formed in 16th c. to denote the second power of
a million (by substituting bi- prefix2 for the initial letters), trillion
and quadrillion being similarly formed to denote its 3rd and 4th powers. The
name appears not to have been adopted in Eng. before the end of the 17th c.:
see quot. from Locke. Subsequently the application of the word was changed
by French arithmeticians, figures being divided in numeration into groups of
threes, instead of sixes, so that F. billion, trillion, denoted not the
second and third powers of a million, but a thousand millions and a thousand
thousand millions. In the 19th century, the U.S. adopted the French
convention, but Britain retained the original and etymological use (to which
France reverted in 1948).
Since 1951 the U.S. value, a thousand millions, has been increasingly
used in Britain, especially in technical writing and, more recently, in
journalism; but the older sense 'a million millions' is still common.] >>
--
John Dean
Oxford
De-frag to reply
Christopher Green
> word "billion" in England vs. America?
>
> john
Both usages are quite old and originated in France. The use of
"billion" for ten-to-the-ninth-power is due to mathematician Nicolas
Chuquet (1484). The use of "milliard" for ten-to-the-ninth and
"billion" for ten-to-the-twelfth may be due to Henri Pelletier (ca.
1550), though some believe it was earlier. France, and later the U.S.,
followed the Chuquet nomenclature; England and the rest of Europe
followed Pelletier.
It certainly wasn't unusual for 18th-C. or 19th-C. Americans to adopt
a usage different from the English, for reasons that were practical at
the time, or that were thought to be an improvement (thus Noah Webster
and later, less successful, spelling reformers), or that were
different just to make a point of the distinction. I don't know where
using "billion" for ten-to-the-ninth falls in that set of stock
reasons.
France switched over to the Pelletier nomenclature starting in 1948.
The U.K. under Harold Wilson made a partial switch to the Chuquet
nomenclature in 1974, but both usages are still current (and
confusing) there (and elsewhere).
--
Chris Green
Stefano MacGregor
> Does anyone know the origin or reason for the difference in the use of the
> word "billion" in England vs. America?
The words for humongous numbers were invented, as I recall, by either
a German or a Frenchman. This was back in the days before such
numbers were needed by most people.
The system was misunderstood by someone else (either a Frenchman or a
German), so there were two sets of values assigned to the numbers.
The USA uses the French set of values, and the UK uses the German set.
--
Stefano
http://www.steve-and-pattie.com/esperantujo/vocab.html
Donna Richoux
> Does anyone know the origin or reason for the difference in the use of the
> word "billion" in England vs. America?
>
The AUE FAQ has several paragraphs about the origin and history. The
word was originally French, and I'll leave the rest for you to read. The
AUE Website is at
http://www.alt-usage-english.org/
Intro C also has a short summary on the "billion" situation. We worked
hard on that, so I hope our newer participants will take a look.
--
Best wishes -- Donna Richoux
Daihard
"John Andrisan" <andr...@pacbell.net> wrote...
> Does anyone know the origin or reason for the difference in the use of the
> word "billion" in England vs. America?
I am used to the American way (of course), but I think the British way is
more logical, given that the prefix "bi-" means two. Billion = million x
million.
Dai
Mike Williams
> word "billion" in England vs. America?
So that Americans could become billionaires faster.
R F
>
> "John Andrisan" <andr...@pacbell.net> wrote...
> > Does anyone know the origin or reason for the difference in the use of the
> > word "billion" in England vs. America?
>
> I am used to the American way (of course), but I think the British way is
> more logical, given that the prefix "bi-" means two.
Further misuse of "logical". Here by "logical" you seem to mean "form
follows function". Calling the British approach to punctuation
"logical" is similar.
R H Draney
Once upon a time, every US schoolboy kept his loose papers in a folder called a
"Pee-Chee" (from the brand name)...said folder had on its flaps small charts of
weights and measures, the multiplication table (up through twelve-times-twelve),
and other useful information...among the weights and measures was a term I've
never heard in practical use: "great gross", said to be 1728 (or "twelve dozen
dozen") of something....
If a "gross" can be expanded into a "great gross" that is not "a gross of
grosses", I have no problem with a "million" being made into a "super-million"
("billion") that is not a "million millions"....
On the matter of larger and smaller units of currency, it seems suspiciously
convenient that the Japanese number-naming system groups its powers of ten by
fours instead of threes...because of the relative size of a single yen, Japanese
bankers have much more immediate use for a word to describe 10^12, and in fact
such a word is the third ("man", "oku", "cho") in a towering series of "big
number" words (where US English requires four to reach the same level:
"thousand", "million", "billion", "trillion")....r
Alan Jones
"Donna Richoux" <tr...@euronet.nl> wrote in message
news:1fwtfr7.6i6d0h1x7p2uiN%tr...@euronet.nl...
To call one the "American" and the other the "English" usage is perhaps
misleading. UK economists, and newspapers reporting finance, and Government
departments all use the thousand-million version, though the everyday sense
of billion is indeed a million times a million. UK publications sometimes
avoid the term by using 10^9 and 10^12, and thus eliminate uncertainty at
the risk of totally baffling the innumerate.
See http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/numbers.htm for a longish
account. The following two groups of language domains are offered there to
show current usage internationally:
Multiples of a million: German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish,
French (since 1948), Spanish (including American Spanish, though not Puerto
Rico), Portuguese (European), Catalan, Galician, Hungarian, Polish, Czech,
Slovak, Serbo-Croatian (Serbian, Croatian), Slovene, Hungarian.
Multiples of a thousand: US English, Italian, Russian, Turkish, Greek,
Portuguese (Brazilian).
See also http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/large.html
Alan Jones
Mike Page
<a...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>To call one the "American" and the other the "English" usage is perhaps
>misleading. UK economists, and newspapers reporting finance, and Government
>departments all use the thousand-million version, though the everyday sense
>of billion is indeed a million times a million.
I don't think the everyday sense in UK English is 10^12, nor has
it been for years. I've never seen it in the wild. If you
disagree please provide numerous counterexamples. (I think
someone did manage to dredge up an ambiguous one when this was
discussed in aue on one occasion.)
Mike Page
Philip Eden
"Alan Jones" <a...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:PSpIa.2$1z...@news-binary.blueyonder.co.uk...
>
> To call one the "American" and the other the "English" usage is perhaps
> misleading. UK economists, and newspapers reporting finance, and
Government
> departments all use the thousand-million version, though the everyday
sense
> of billion is indeed a million times a million. UK publications sometimes
> avoid the term by using 10^9 and 10^12, and thus eliminate uncertainty at
> the risk of totally baffling the innumerate.
>
definition. I occasionally need to refer to quantities of this size, and
always use the traditional definition in my copy. It always gets changed,
even in newspapers one might regard as traditionalist. You can check
for yourself, if you like. Yesterday I filed my piece for Saturday's
Daily Telegraph (back page) and it contains the phrase
"64,000 million gallons of water". Without doubt it will appear as
"64 billion gallons ...", unless it gets subbed out altogether.
Philip Eden
Jonathan Jones
> Since 1951 the U.S. value, a thousand millions, has been increasingly
> used in Britain, especially in technical writing and, more recently, in
> journalism; but the older sense 'a million millions' is still common.]
I imagine that's somewhat inconvenient at times.
-Jon J.
Philip Eden
"Lungfish" <lung...@softhome.net> wrote in message
news:BB172C26.5AA3%lung...@softhome.net...
<snip>
> While the American system is based on limiting the modifiers of larger
> orders of magnitude to "one", "ten", and "hundred". So we get a new term
> every third exponent of ten, viz:
>
> ten 10^1
> hundred 10^2
> thousand 10^3
> ten thousand 10^4
> hundred thousand 10^5
> million 10^6
> ten million 10^7
> hundred million 10^8
> billion 10^9 (English "thousand million")
> ten billion 10^10 (English "ten thousand million")
> hundred billion 10^11 (English "hundred thousand million")
> trillion 10^12 (English "billion").
>
We already use 'K' (although it should be 'k') liberally
to mean 'thousand' especially when referring to money, as
in "I've put my house on the market for £895K." We're
becoming increasingly familiar with mega, giga and tera when
talking about computers, and I'm sure the others will follow.
Palaeoclimatologists use kA and MA for thousands and
millions of years, so why shouldn't we talk about a
world population of 6 going on 7G, an ice age lasting
2 mega-years (the hy-phen is useful here), or a budget
deficit of 10 tera-dollars?
Philip Eden
Mike Oliver
> I is surprised no-one has suggested adopting the SI terminology.
> millions of years,
That's not SI, of course. In SI, kA means kiloampere.
Steve Hayes
>Does anyone know the origin or reason for the difference in the use of the
>word "billion" in England vs. America?
The French couldn't make up their minds.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
GrapeApe
I dunno. how?
I thought for a second you were trying to say U.F.O. was a common term for
something other than an unidentified flying object, rather than merely stating
it is an object , flying, that cannot be identified. That might look like a
flying saucer. Or an alien spacecraft. Or an airplane. Or Superman.
But not necessarily a flying saucer. Just a wossit.
Raymond S. Wise
news:bcsslp$jr8$1...@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk...
Here is how *The Century Dictionary,* an American dictionary of 1895, put
it:
From
www.century-dictionary.com
[quote]
billion [...], _n._ [F., contracted from *_bi-
million,_ < L. _bi-,_ twice (second power), + F. _mil-
lion,_ million.] 1. In Great Britain, a million
of millions ; as many millions as there are units
in a million (1,000,000,000,000).--2. In France
and the United States, a thousand millions
(1,000,000,000). [The word _billion_ was introduced into
French in the sixteenth century, in the sense of a million
to the second power, as a trillion was a million to the third
power. At that time numbers were usually pointed off
in periods of six figures. In the seventeenth century the
custom prevailed of pointing off numbers in periods of
three, and this led to the change in the meaning of the
word _billion_ in French. The words _billion, trillion,_ etc.,
did not apparently come into use in English until a later
date, for Locke ("Essay on the Human Understanding,"
ii. 16, [Section] 6, 1690) speaks of the use of _billion_ as a novelty.
The English meaning of the word is thus the original and
most systematic. The word _billion_ is not used in the
French of every-day life, one thousand millions being
called a _milliard._]
[end quote]
The usage note for the following entry word, although entirely
understandable for that time, nevertheless amused me.
[quote]
billionaire [...], _n._ [< _billion_ + _-aire,_
as in _millionaire._] One who possesses property
worth a billion reckoned in standard coin of
the country. [Rare.]
[end quote]
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
Per Rønne
> billion 10^9 (English "thousand million")
Actually, a milliard.
So in Europe we've got:
million 10^6
milliard 10^9
billion 10^12
billiard 10^15
trillion 10^18
trilliard 10^21
quadrillion 10^24
quadrilliard 10^27
etcetera.
--
Per Erik Rønne
Per Rønne
If a person talks about "a thousand milliard" you will always know what
he means by "billion" :-).
--
Per Erik Rønne
Yusuf B Gursey
: "Donna Richoux" <tr...@euronet.nl> wrote in message
at least turkish uses milyar (i.e. milliard) for 10^9 but trilyon
for 10^12 (these words have become common since the dolar is over a
million turkish liras. bilyon (10^9) is listed in dictionaries but not
commonly used.
my russian dictionary (a recent edition) lists teh continental system, so
a clarification is in order.
: See also http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/large.html
: Alan Jones
Yusuf B Gursey
interesting.
: "John Dean" <john...@frag.lineone.net> wrote in message
Jon and Mary Miller
For a large number of Merkins, a U.F.O. is a flying saucer. It's just
that those lying SOBs in the gubmint won't let us know about them, so
they're covering the whole thing up.
Jon Miller
Dave Swindell
<mikeora...@ntlworld.com> writes
her 50s, was very taken aback to discover that the billion used in the
press and other media was really only a thousand million. I came across
the devalued useage myself only when I was obliged to do economics at
university in the 1960s, where all the major text books were American
and used it. The shock for my ladyfriend was the sudden realisation
that the numbers in the media were a thousandth of what she had always
assumed.
--
Dave OSOS#24 dswindel...@tcp.co.uk Remove my gerbil for email replies
Yamaha XJ900S & Wessex sidecar, the sexy one
Yamaha XJ900F & Watsonian Monaco, the comfortable one
Per Rønne
> Yesterday I filed my piece for Saturday's
> Daily Telegraph (back page) and it contains the phrase
> "64,000 million gallons of water". Without doubt it will appear as
> "64 billion gallons ...", unless it gets subbed out altogether.
And what would have happened had you written "64 milliard gallons of
water" - whatever a gallon of water is [I know: a non-metric measure of
volume].
--
Per Erik Rønne
david56
A gallon is about as much beer as a person can drink in an evening
without being taken seriously dead.
--
David
I say what it occurs to me to say.
=====
The address is valid today, but I change it periodically.
Brian M. Scott
On Fri, 20 Jun 2003 06:54:27 +0000 (UTC), Yusuf B Gursey
<y...@TheWorld.com> wrote:
>In alt.usage.english Alan Jones <a...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in <PSpIa.2$1z...@news-binary.blueyonder.co.uk>:
[...]
>: Multiples of a thousand: US English, Italian, Russian, Turkish, Greek,
>: Portuguese (Brazilian).
[...]
>my russian dictionary (a recent edition) lists teh continental system, so
>a clarification is in order.
Mine is 1944 vintage and also uses the Continental system, with
<milliard> for 10^9 and <billion> for 10^12.
[...]
Brian
Per Rønne
> Per Rønne) spake thus:
>
> > Philip Eden <phi...@weather.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > > Yesterday I filed my piece for Saturday's
> > > Daily Telegraph (back page) and it contains the phrase
> > > "64,000 million gallons of water". Without doubt it will appear as
> > > "64 billion gallons ...", unless it gets subbed out altogether.
> >
> > And what would have happened had you written "64 milliard gallons of
> > water" - whatever a gallon of water is [I know: a non-metric measure of
> > volume].
>
> A gallon is about as much beer as a person can drink in an evening
> without being taken seriously dead.
Oh, ten litres ...
--
Per Erik Rønne
rewboss
3ef245ab$0$7738$fa0f...@lovejoy.zen.co.uk...
>
> Newspapers I have contributed to almost universally use the 10^9
> definition. I occasionally need to refer to quantities of this size, and
> always use the traditional definition in my copy. It always gets changed,
> even in newspapers one might regard as traditionalist. You can check
> for yourself, if you like. Yesterday I filed my piece for Saturday's
> Daily Telegraph (back page) and it contains the phrase
> "64,000 million gallons of water". Without doubt it will appear as
> "64 billion gallons ...", unless it gets subbed out altogether.
I well remember, several years ago now, the Daily Telegraph announcing that
it was switching from the "British" definition of billion to the definition
commonly used in the US and most of Europe, bringing the paper in line with
other papers and the government.
It hardly matters, though. To most of us, by the time you get to numbers in
the thousands and millions of millions, they all mean exactly the same and
can be translated as "a mind-bogglingly huge number with lots of zeroes".
Daniel James
wrote:
> Or how faggot went from meaning stick of wood
> to male homosexual.
No, no ... a faggot is a *bundle* of sticks. Or, of course, a sort
of meatball or rissole.
Hmm. "Rissole". Didn't we do the rissole jokes a few weeks ago?
Cheers,
Daniel.
Daniel James
Jones wrote:
> Multiples of a thousand: US English, Italian, ...
Italian?
I recall visiting an Italian bank some fifteen years ago (the
company I was working with was trying to sell them some IT Security
equipment), While we were there the bank's IT staff showed us -
with some glee - that day's newspaper headline in which it was
reported (in Italian) that one of their competitors had been
defrauded of some number of billions of lira. Our hosts were very
careful to impress upon us that "un bilione" in Italian meant
10^12, and not 10^9 as (they said it did) in English.
However, I see that my Italian dictionary (pub. 1997) says:
In the Italian to English section:
Bilione (m) [1] (mille milioni) billion, [2] (un milione di
milioni) trillion.
In the English to Italian section:
Billion n. [1] miliardo, [2] (antiq. GB) mille miliardi.
They sound even more mixed-up than we are.
I can confirm from personal observation that house prices are (or
were, before the introduction of the Euro) commonly quoted on the
cards in estate agent's windows in "miliardi lire", in which
context "un miliardo" was definitely 10^9.
Cheers,
Daniel.
Daniel James
> billion 10^9 (English "thousand million")
English "milliard".
Cheers,
Daniel.
Mike Lyle
> "John Dean" <john...@frag.lineone.net> wrote in message
> news:bcsslp$jr8$1...@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk...
> > OED is your friend :
[...]
> Here is how *The Century Dictionary,* an American dictionary of 1895, put
> it:
>
> From
> www.century-dictionary.com
[...]
> The usage note for the following entry word, although entirely
> understandable for that time, nevertheless amused me.
>
> [quote]
>
> billionaire [...], _n._ [< _billion_ + _-aire,_
> as in _millionaire._] One who possesses property
> worth a billion reckoned in standard coin of
> the country. [Rare.]
>
> [end quote]
OED is, as usual, the *Century Dictionary's* friend, too; though this
time at least I think the imitator went one better! The OED1 original
reads:
"The possessor of property worth a billion or more of the recognized
standard coin of the realm..." I like "realm", which seems a little at
odds with the nationality of the first author quoted, Oliver Wendell
Holmes.
Presumably having thought better of it over the intervening decade or
so, OED1 doesn't use the "coin of the realm" formula for
*millionaire*, instead saying "...'million of money'...pounds,
dollars, francs etc".
Mike.
Steve Hayes
wrote:
Wouldn't that lead to a similar confusion - does k mean 1000 or 1024?
MasterCougar
news:20030619234514...@mb-m22.aol.com:
>>How people equate, for example U.F.O with flying saucer.
>
> I dunno. how?
>
>
I mean that people now say "UFO" when they mean "flying saucer" In
other words, they don't mean, "Hey, did you see that unidentified flying
object last night?" but, "Hey did you see that alien spacecraft?"
For example, from a real conversation I overheard on a news show a
decade or so ago, "So, do you believe in UFOs?"
--
Marc,
This is where I would normally put a funny sig, but now I just don't have
it in me.
MasterCougar
<waste...@nospam.aaisp.org> posted news:VA.00000253.00df6cd6
@nospam.aaisp.org:
> No, no ... a faggot is a *bundle* of sticks. Or, of course, a sort
> of meatball or rissole.
>
Ooops, thank you. Quite correct.
MC
MasterCougar <MstrC...@snotmail.com> wrote:
> > No, no ... a faggot is a *bundle* of sticks. Or, of course, a sort
> > of meatball or rissole.
> >
>
> Ooops, thank you. Quite correct.
Yeah, you stoopid rissole!
Donna Richoux
But John was quoting the OED. What's the date on that, I wonder? "Is
still common" might mean thirty years ago.
When we last updated the "billion" entry for the Mini-FAQ, no one could
come up with any evidence of "billion" still being used to mean "a
million millions," in a mainstream book, magazine or newspaper.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Professor Redwine
> I well remember, several years ago now, the Daily Telegraph announcing that
> it was switching from the "British" definition of billion to the definition
> commonly used in the US and most of Europe, bringing the paper in line with
> other papers and the government.
Er, oops, but have I misread everything in this thread? Have I suffered
confusion for nothing. The definition used in the US is not the definition
used in most of Europe. I thought that was the point. We have a milliard,
which the Americans and now the British press and government call a billion while the
Australian press and many Brits call it a thousand million. Then we have a
billion, which Americans etc. call a trillion.
Sorry rew, but you threw me with that one.
> It hardly matters, though. To most of us, by the time you get to numbers in
> the thousands and millions of millions, they all mean exactly the same and
> can be translated as "a mind-bogglingly huge number with lots of zeroes".
"Nothing in particular, and lots of it" ;-)
--
Redwine, Berlin
We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with
nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke,
and a presumption that once our eyes watered. --Tom Stoppard
MasterCougar
news:copeSPAMZAP-86DA...@mail.inter.net:
> Yeah, you stoopid rissole!
>
I resent that, I think.
Professor Redwine
> Wouldn't that lead to a similar confusion - does k mean 1000 or 1024?
It means 1000. It is used in computing to refer (mostly) to 1024, because
that is a more sensible value in binary, but it is an approximation. Thus,
a kilobyte is 1024 bytes, but kilo does not mean 1024. You have then to
contextualize it.
I have a question about the capitalization of "k". I was taught (many
years ago, in a tiny townshipchen not far from a desert in Australia) that
the multipliers greater than 1, i.e. Deca, Hecto, Kilo, Mega, etc. are
given a capital initial, and those less than 1, i.e. Deci, Centi, Milli,
etc. are given a lower case initial. But it seems accepted fact here that
I am wrong. The COD also says that the capitals begin with 10^3.
So, my question is this: am I the only one here who thought that
capitalisation begins at 10? (unlike life, which begins for Australians at
40 but for Germans at 88)
Lungfish
grap...@aol.comjunk wrote on 6/19/03 8:45 PM:
Flying saucers everywhere, say, did you see one too?
One night they came to me, as they will
Also come to you
Those flying saucers are my friends,
Cuz they're "So Nice!"
I'm gonna see them again and again.
For flying saucers we are _unbelievably important_
Because they know the secret of "Life!"
Be fearless!
Lungfish
phi...@weather.demon.co.uk wrote on 6/19/03 4:41 PM:
> Palaeoclimatologists use kA and MA for thousands and
> millions of years,
I've seen "kya" and "Mya" for "thousand years ago" and "million years ago".
Quite nice when pronunciated as writ.
Ben Zimmer
>
> Jonathan Jones <use...@spitzensparken.com> wrote:
>
> > "John Dean" <john...@frag.lineone.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Since 1951 the U.S. value, a thousand millions, has been increasingly
> > > used in Britain, especially in technical writing and, more recently, in
> > > journalism; but the older sense 'a million millions' is still common.]
> >
> > I imagine that's somewhat inconvenient at times.
>
> But John was quoting the OED. What's the date on that, I wonder? "Is
> still common" might mean thirty years ago.
Yes, that usage note probably first appeared in the A-G volume of the
OED Supplement, published in 1972 (two years before Harold Wilson et al.
officially converted to the U.S. system). When the entry was folded
into OED2 in 1989, it might not have undergone any further revision.
But by that time the old sense of "billion" might have been nearing
extinction, at least in public usage.
This is from an article in the Guardian, October 10, 1997:
NOT until the mid 1980s did Britain's millions, billions,
and other high numbers move into total conformity with the
numbering system of the United States.
Officially, one trillion is (in France, Britain and Germany)
1,000,000,000,000,000,000, a thousand million million. And a
billion, in the traditional British numerology, was one
million million.
But for 10 years at least Europeans have, with varying
degrees of reluctance, fallen into line with the American
system, whereby a trillion is one million million and a
billion is a mere 1,000 million, what the British used to
call a milliard.
Another Rightpondian perspective, from a contributor to Everything2:
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=billion
The change in Britain first took place as far back as 1974,
when Harold Wilson's government decided to use American
billions in treasury figures; however, I find it hard to
imagine anyone much in the 1970s using the word naturally
like that. It is only in the last ten years or so that I've
been aware of the American usage appearing widely in
newspapers and even, the last place it should appear, in
scientific writing: scientific popularizations, anyway,
perhaps because they're intended to sell on both sides of
the Atlantic.
Alan Jones
This is rather like the -ise / -ize question. Almost all mainstream UK
publications use -ize, and have done so for many years, as recommended by
OED; but British people obstinately go on using -ise in their correspondence
(and are humoured in their eccentricity by some versions of Microsoft's
spell-check facility). I think you'd need some sort of face-to-face survey
to discover what British people usually understand by "billion", other than
"an awful lot" - the printed word won't do.
There must be awkwardness in EU discussions, with France, Germany and the
northern countries officially regarding a billion as 10^12 while the UK and
several Mediterranean countries - and international economic convention -
say it's 10^9. If ever Europe adopts a formal constitution, perhaps we
shall at last all agree - on paper.
Alan Jones
rewboss
pan.2003.06.20...@privacy.net...
> Er, oops, but have I misread everything in this thread? Have I suffered
> confusion for nothing. The definition used in the US is not the definition
> used in most of Europe. I thought that was the point. We have a milliard,
> which the Americans and now the British press and government call a
billion while the
> Australian press and many Brits call it a thousand million. Then we have a
> billion, which Americans etc. call a trillion.
Er... now you're confusing me...
Okay, we're specifically talking about the word "billion". Let's see...
In old coinage, that's a million million. Now, in line with the US, it's a
thousand million.
That's what the Germans call... er... eine Milliarde...
Right. Yes. I think.
I think I must have been thrown by the title of this thread. "Billion vs
million"? Where might a billion be confused with a million?
Professor Redwine
> Professor Redwine <m...@privacy.net> schrieb in im Newsbeitrag:
> pan.2003.06.20...@privacy.net...
>
>> Er, oops, but have I misread everything in this thread? Have I suffered
>> confusion for nothing. The definition used in the US is not the definition
>> used in most of Europe. I thought that was the point. We have a milliard,
>> which the Americans and now the British press and government call a
> billion while the
>> Australian press and many Brits call it a thousand million. Then we have a
>> billion, which Americans etc. call a trillion.
>
> Er... now you're confusing me...
No, you're confusing yourself. Reread your previous post. You said, and I
quote:
"the Daily Telegraph announcing that
it was switching from the "British" definition of billion to the definition
commonly used in the US and most of Europe"
> Okay, we're specifically talking about the word "billion". Let's see...
>
> In old coinage, that's a million million. Now, in line with the US, it's a
> thousand million.
Exactly. But not in line with Europe.
> That's what the Germans call... er... eine Milliarde...
Also a milliard in English.
> I think I must have been thrown by the title of this thread. "Billion vs
> million"? Where might a billion be confused with a million?
I don't know. Put either sum in my bank account and I will let you know if
I get confused.
Hmmm. Hadn't picked up on that subject wierdness, think it should have
been "billion vs. trillion" or something like that. But anyway, whatever
the cause, you were definitely confused.
And I feel constrained to point this out, in memory of a certain reference
to pubic hairs.
Dave Swindell
<bass.b...@ntlworld.com> writes
>Per Rønne) spake thus:
>
>> Philip Eden <phi...@weather.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> > Yesterday I filed my piece for Saturday's
>> > Daily Telegraph (back page) and it contains the phrase
>> > "64,000 million gallons of water". Without doubt it will appear as
>> > "64 billion gallons ...", unless it gets subbed out altogether.
>>
>> And what would have happened had you written "64 milliard gallons of
>> water" - whatever a gallon of water is [I know: a non-metric measure of
>> volume].
>
>A gallon is about as much beer as a person can drink in an evening
>without being taken seriously dead.
>
Skitt
> Per Rønne) spake thus:
>>> Yesterday I filed my piece for Saturday's
>>> Daily Telegraph (back page) and it contains the phrase
>>> "64,000 million gallons of water". Without doubt it will appear as
>>> "64 billion gallons ...", unless it gets subbed out altogether.
>>
>> And what would have happened had you written "64 milliard gallons of
>> water" - whatever a gallon of water is [I know: a non-metric measure
>> of volume].
>
> A gallon is about as much beer as a person can drink in an evening
> without being taken seriously dead.
Hah! Some years ago I drank more than that in an evening and was still
posting to this group until the last beer was gone. I think the most I put
away in an evening usually was around 1.4 gallons US (15 12-oz cans).
I no longer imbibe, except for a can or two of beer when at a party or on a
special occasion.
--
Skitt (in SF Bay Area) http://www.geocities.com/opus731/
I speak English well -- I learn it from a book!
-- Manuel (Fawlty Towers)
Aaron J. Dinkin
> I am used to the American way (of course), but I think the British way
> is more logical, given that the prefix "bi-" means two. Billion =
> million x million.
This is only more logical if "-illion" means 'million', which it's not
clear that it does.
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom
Mike Oliver
> I no longer imbibe, except for a can or two of beer when at a party or on a
> special occasion.
How special can the occasion be, if you're drinking beer from a *can*? Yuck.
Skitt
Well, miniboinks are some. I think we had pitchers and glasses, though. In
any case, I was using "can" as a measure of 12 ounces, not necessarily the
vessel from which the golden nectar was quaffed.
Philip Eden
"Professor Redwine" <m...@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:pan.2003.06.20....@privacy.net...
> On Fri, 20 Jun 2003 10:42:18 +0000, Steve Hayes wrote:
>
> > Wouldn't that lead to a similar confusion - does k mean 1000 or 1024?
>
> It means 1000. It is used in computing to refer (mostly) to 1024, because
> that is a more sensible value in binary, but it is an approximation. Thus,
> a kilobyte is 1024 bytes, but kilo does not mean 1024. You have then to
> contextualize it.
>
> I have a question about the capitalization of "k". I was taught (many
> years ago, in a tiny townshipchen not far from a desert in Australia) that
> the multipliers greater than 1, i.e. Deca, Hecto, Kilo, Mega, etc. are
> given a capital initial, and those less than 1, i.e. Deci, Centi, Milli,
> etc. are given a lower case initial. But it seems accepted fact here that
> I am wrong. The COD also says that the capitals begin with 10^3.
>
convention here is that units named after real persons carry
a capital letter.
Philip Eden
Robert Bannister
> "John Dean" <john...@frag.lineone.net> wrote:
>
>
>> Since 1951 the U.S. value, a thousand millions, has been
>> increasingly used in Britain, especially in technical writing and,
>> more recently, in journalism; but the older sense 'a million
>> millions' is still common.]
>
>
> I imagine that's somewhat inconvenient at times.
That's why I never use the word. When reading, for 'billion' and
'trillion' I mentally substitute 'large number'. Most articles that have
a scientific basis, use 10^9, 10^12, etc. anyway.
--
Rob Bannister
Steve Hayes
>>my russian dictionary (a recent edition) lists teh continental system, so
>>a clarification is in order.
>
>Mine is 1944 vintage and also uses the Continental system, with
><milliard> for 10^9 and <billion> for 10^12.
My 1964 COD gives:
---
billion n. a million millions; (in the US and France) a thousand millions. [F,
coined in 16th c. out of BI & million to denote the second power of a
million]; meaning afterwards changed in France (so U.S.) but not in Britain.
milliard n. a thousand millions (listed as a new word, like laser and maser).
---
In 1971 the South African Metrication Board made the use of milliard for a
thousand millions and billion for a million millions compulsory, as part of
the adoption of the SI units. They threatened to prosecute anyone who sold
land measured in acres, or any stationer who sold a ruler marked in inches.
The Afrikaans press obediently fell into line, but the English press, about
then, or soon afterwards, began referring to milliards as billions.
At the time of the change I was the proof reader for the Windhoek Advertiser
in Namibia (then under South African rule, and so subject to the dictates of
the Metrication Board). We were instructed to follow the dictates in the
paper, and so the reporters tried to use the prescribed terms, but in copy
coming over the wire services there was no way of telling. I used the origin
to decide. If it was a Reuters billion, I left it. If it was a US wire service
like AP, I changed it to milliard.
I doubt that it made any difference to the readers at the time, but the
confusion in terms will doubtless give future historians a headache.
Mike Oliver
> Well, miniboinks are some. I think we had pitchers and glasses, though. In
> any case, I was using "can" as a measure of 12 ounces, not necessarily the
> vessel from which the golden nectar was quaffed.
If you pour beer from a can into a glass, it's still beer from
a can. Still yuck.
Steve Hayes
wrote:
> I mean that people now say "UFO" when they mean "flying saucer" In
>other words, they don't mean, "Hey, did you see that unidentified flying
>object last night?" but, "Hey did you see that alien spacecraft?"
>
> For example, from a real conversation I overheard on a news show a
>decade or so ago, "So, do you believe in UFOs?"
I was visited by someone who was rather fanatical about UFOs. Lobied his MP,
bishop and that kind of thing.
He asked me, "Do you believe in You-Fows?"
I replied, "I'm not sure, but I've seen one."
He didn't understand, nor did he understand when I explained to him that if
you claim to have identified a flying object as an alien spacecraft, then it
is no longer a UFO but an IFO.
But I don't think they taught set theory in schools in his day.
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Steve Hayes" <haye...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3ef3da88...@news.saix.net...
> thousand millions and billion for a million millions compulsory, as part
of
> the adoption of the SI units. They threatened to prosecute anyone who sold
> land measured in acres, or any stationer who sold a ruler marked in
inches.
>
> The Afrikaans press obediently fell into line, but the English press,
about
> then, or soon afterwards, began referring to milliards as billions.
>
> At the time of the change I was the proof reader for the Windhoek
Advertiser
> in Namibia (then under South African rule, and so subject to the dictates
of
> the Metrication Board). We were instructed to follow the dictates in the
> paper, and so the reporters tried to use the prescribed terms, but in copy
> coming over the wire services there was no way of telling. I used the
origin
> to decide. If it was a Reuters billion, I left it. If it was a US wire
service
> like AP, I changed it to milliard.
>
the yankisation of SA English that was largely a result of the cultural
boycott.
There are quite a few examples of this around - most recently I saw a road
construction sign referring to the pavement as a 'sidewalk'.
--
Judges are known for making extreme antediluvian remarks from time to time,
their being dressed as Ark stevedores only encourages this anachronistic
playing to the gallery.- recommendations on judical attire
Prai Jei
news:bcub33$rso$2...@pcls4.std.com...
> In alt.usage.english Alan Jones <a...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in
<PSpIa.2$1z...@news-binary.blueyonder.co.uk>:
>
> : "Donna Richoux" <tr...@euronet.nl> wrote in message
> : news:1fwtfr7.6i6d0h1x7p2uiN%tr...@euronet.nl...
> :> John Andrisan <andr...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> :>
> :> > Does anyone know the origin or reason for the difference in the use
of
> : the
> :> > word "billion" in England vs. America?
Anybody heard mention of billiard for 10^15 etc, or would that be a load of
spherical objects?
As an aside, the King James bible of 1611 represents the number 2x10^8 as
"two hundred thousand thousand" at Rev 9:16 - presumably even the humble
million was a novelty at the time, not worthy of a place in holy writ.
(This is the largest finite number in the bible. NT doubles the best that OT
can offer, the "ten thousand times ten thousand" who stood before God at
Daniel 7:10)
Stefano MacGregor
> I have a question about the capitalization of "k". I was taught (many
> years ago, in a tiny townshipchen not far from a desert in Australia) that
> the multipliers greater than 1, i.e. Deca, Hecto, Kilo, Mega, etc. are
> given a capital initial, and those less than 1, i.e. Deci, Centi, Milli,
> etc. are given a lower case initial. But it seems accepted fact here that
> I am wrong. The COD also says that the capitals begin with 10^3.
That would have been nice. As it is, it's correct except for "h" for
"hecto (100)" and "k" for "kilo (1000)". There is still "D" for "deka
(10)" to distinguish it from "d" for "deci (1/10)".
--
Stefano
"La Forto estu kun vi!"
dcw
Stefano MacGregor <esper...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>That would have been nice. As it is, it's correct except for "h" for
>"hecto (100)" and "k" for "kilo (1000)". There is still "D" for "deka
>(10)" to distinguish it from "d" for "deci (1/10)".
They may have changed it, but when I learned these prefixes it was "da"
for "deka".
David
Barry Etheridge
"Prai Jei" <pvsto...@prai-jei.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:bd18cg$ev3$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk...
certainly a quite deliberate multiplication of the number in Daniel. Take
the biggest number you ever heard of and double it. Apocalyptic writers were
always trying to outdo each other. Dawkins & Gould had nothing on those
guys!
Professor Redwine
Yes, this got me too. I learnt it as D, but found it in the COD as da.
mb
...
> My 1964 COD gives:
>
> ---
> billion n. a million millions; (in the US and France) a thousand millions. [F,
> coined in 16th c. out of BI & million to denote the second power of a
> million]; meaning afterwards changed in France (so U.S.) but not in Britain.
>
> milliard n. a thousand millions (listed as a new word, like laser and maser).
People here keep mentioning some French billion for 10^9 (that might
exist in some obscure government cubicles) as if it were part of
current usage. To footfolk a milliard is a milliard, and "billion"
evokes some inimaginable number like 10^12 or thereabouts. That's why
US defense budgets in newspapers always sound a thousand times more
impressive than they already are.
John Holmes
>
> France switched over to the Pelletier nomenclature starting in 1948.
> The U.K. under Harold Wilson made a partial switch to the Chuquet
> nomenclature in 1974, but both usages are still current (and
> confusing) there (and elsewhere).
Why the 26-year time-lag?
--
Regards
John
John Holmes
> david56 wrote:
>>
>> A gallon is about as much beer as a person can drink in an evening
>> without being taken seriously dead.
>
> Hah! Some years ago I drank more than that in an evening and was
> still posting to this group until the last beer was gone. I think
> the most I put away in an evening usually was around 1.4 gallons US
> (15 12-oz cans).
That's 1.17 gallons Imperial (5.3 litres). Not so very different from
what David said.
--
Regards
John
Ron Hardin
> People here keep mentioning some French billion for 10^9 (that might
> exist in some obscure government cubicles) as if it were part of
> current usage. To footfolk a milliard is a milliard, and "billion"
> evokes some inimaginable number like 10^12 or thereabouts. That's why
> US defense budgets in newspapers always sound a thousand times more
> impressive than they already are.
To the USA, a milliard is a kind of duck.
--
Ron Hardin
rhha...@mindspring.com
On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.
rzed
> On Fri, 20 Jun 2003 13:57:43 GMT, MasterCougar
<MstrC...@snotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I mean that people now say "UFO" when they mean "flying saucer"
In
> >other words, they don't mean, "Hey, did you see that unidentified
flying
> >object last night?" but, "Hey did you see that alien spacecraft?"
> >
> > For example, from a real conversation I overheard on a news
show a
> >decade or so ago, "So, do you believe in UFOs?"
>
> I was visited by someone who was rather fanatical about UFOs. Lobied
his MP,
> bishop and that kind of thing.
>
> He asked me, "Do you believe in You-Fows?"
>
> I replied, "I'm not sure, but I've seen one."
>
> He didn't understand, nor did he understand when I explained to him
that if
> you claim to have identified a flying object as an alien spacecraft,
then it
> is no longer a UFO but an IFO.
>
> But I don't think they taught set theory in schools in his day.
So how does that work, exactly? Are you saying that you saw a Flying
Object, but in the act of classifying it as Unidentified, you thereby
identified it? If that's what you mean, then the set of observed UFOs
should be empty, right?
A former landlady told me one day in all seriousness how she had seen
a UFO land in a field behind her house, and two occupants had emerged
and worked on the craft for a bit before it (and they) took off again.
She did not claim any alient contact apart from visual observation. It
later turned out that she didn't actually own the house we rented from
her, so it's possible that her view of reality could stray from what
the rest of us believe to be true at times.
--
rzed
Henry Polard
Ron Hardin <rhha...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> mb wrote:
> > People here keep mentioning some French billion for 10^9 (that might
> > exist in some obscure government cubicles) as if it were part of
> > current usage. To footfolk a milliard is a milliard, and "billion"
> > evokes some inimaginable number like 10^12 or thereabouts. That's why
> > US defense budgets in newspapers always sound a thousand times more
> > impressive than they already are.
>
> To the USA, a milliard is a kind of duck.
Indeed; see:
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/anas/a._platyrhynchos$narr
ative.html
but to fill in more, also a President; see:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/mf13.html
Henry Polard || An iota of difference.
Daniel James
wrote:
> I was using "can" as a measure of 12 ounces, not necessarily
> the vessel from which the golden nectar was quaffed.
Golden?
I take it you mean *after* it's been drunk.
[Oh, and where drinking is taken seriously there are 20 fluid
ounces in a pint.]
Cheers,
Daniel.
Daniel James
> > I am used to the American way (of course), but I think the
> > British way is more logical, given that the prefix "bi-"
> > means two. Billion = million x million.
>
> This is only more logical if "-illion" means 'million', which
> it's not clear that it does.
No, but it's clear that it *can*.
UK:
10^6 mono-illion = million^1
10^12 bi-illion = million^2
10^18 tri-illion = million^3
10^24 quadri-illion = million^4
etc..
Alternatively it could mean "multiplied by a thousand several
times"
US:
10^6 mono-illion = thousand multiplied by a thousand once
10^9 bi-illion = thousand multiplied by a thousand twice
10^12 bi-illion = thousand multiplied by a thousand thrice
10^15 bi-illion = thousand multiplied by a thousand 4 times
Either is logical ... but if billion were meant to be 10^9 why
would we have the word "milliard"?
Cheers,
Daniel.
Daniel James
Rewboss wrote:
> I well remember, several years ago now, the Daily Telegraph
> announcing that it was switching from the "British"
> definition of billion to the definition commonly used in
It's that "and most of Europe" that worries me. The evidence
seems to be that most of Europe believes a billion to be a
million million, but believes that *English speakers* use (and
have always used) the term to mean a thousand million.
It rather looks as though our non-English-speaking European
brethren have fallen into the trap of believing that Americans
speak the same language as we (British) do, and that we are now
falling into that trap ourselves.
Cheers,
Daniel.
Jacqui
> Steve Hayes wrote
>> He asked me, "Do you believe in You-Fows?"
>>
>> I replied, "I'm not sure, but I've seen one."
>>
>> He didn't understand, nor did he understand when I explained to
>> him that if
>> you claim to have identified a flying object as an alien
>> spacecraft, then it
>> is no longer a UFO but an IFO.
>>
>> But I don't think they taught set theory in schools in his day.
>
> So how does that work, exactly? Are you saying that you saw a
> Flying Object, but in the act of classifying it as Unidentified,
> you thereby identified it?
Er, no - if you see something and you *fail* to identify it as an alien
spacecraft, weather balloon or other named object, then you can happily
claim to have seen an Unidentified Flying Object and be telling the
truth. If you claim to have seen an alien spacecraft, it's an IFO.
Jac
rzed
"Jacqui" <sirlawren...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns93A1B50C042sir...@163.1.2.7...
Well, that's just the thing. If I see a flying object and decide that
it's an airplane, I suppose I have identified it, but to my mind it's
not a very useful identification. It could be a commercial passenger
jet, a Wright Brothers replica, a fighter, a bomber, or who knows what
else. In any if those cases, I can say "This resembles a __________"
where the blank contains the name of a known flying object.
If I claim that the same object is an alien spacecraft, I've not
identified it in the same sense, which means that I can now say: "I
don't know what it is, but here's what I'm calling it." Is that really
identifying it?
I think the point of a UFO is that it's a craft that does not resemble
any of the aircraft (or other flying object) types you or anyone else
is familiar with. That's what makes it unidentified. The only way we
could claim to have spotted and identified an alien spaceship would be
to point out its similarities to known alien spacecraft. We can't just
assume that anything that doesn't fit with the known categories is by
definition an alien spacecraft any more than we can assume that none
of them are.
So who has a wall chart of known alien spacecraft? Anyone?
--
rzed
Skitt
You missed the "we had pitchers" part.
Skitt
Seventeen percent error, it looks like, and I was nowhere near being dead.
Muriel Areno
bass.b...@ntlworld.com wrote on 6/20/03 12:53am:
>> And what would have happened had you written "64 milliard gallons of
>> water" - whatever a gallon of water is [I know: a non-metric measure of
>> volume].
>
> A gallon is about as much beer as a person can drink in an evening
> without being taken seriously dead.
3.89 litres
Muriel
Professor Redwine
> Either is logical ... but if billion were meant to be 10^9 why
> would we have the word "milliard"?
A reasonable question. However, it begs the follow-up: when has having one
word for a given definition stopped the English-speaking word from finding
another?
david56
> John Holmes wrote:
> > Skitt wrote:
> >> david56 wrote:
>
> >>> A gallon is about as much beer as a person can drink in an evening
> >>> without being taken seriously dead.
> >>
> >> Hah! Some years ago I drank more than that in an evening and was
> >> still posting to this group until the last beer was gone. I think
> >> the most I put away in an evening usually was around 1.4 gallons US
> >> (15 12-oz cans).
> >
> > That's 1.17 gallons Imperial (5.3 litres). Not so very different from
> > what David said.
>
> Seventeen percent error, it looks like, and I was nowhere near being dead.
I did say "about". And I was referring to UK beer, not weak foreign
stuff.
--
David
I say what it occurs to me to say.
=====
The address is valid today, but I change it periodically.
Skitt
> ski...@attbi.com spake thus:
>> John Holmes wrote:
>>> Skitt wrote:
>>>> david56 wrote:
>>>>> A gallon is about as much beer as a person can drink in an evening
>>>>> without being taken seriously dead.
>>>>
>>>> Hah! Some years ago I drank more than that in an evening and was
>>>> still posting to this group until the last beer was gone. I think
>>>> the most I put away in an evening usually was around 1.4 gallons US
>>>> (15 12-oz cans).
>>>
>>> That's 1.17 gallons Imperial (5.3 litres). Not so very different
>>> from what David said.
>>
>> Seventeen percent error, it looks like, and I was nowhere near being
>> dead.
>
> I did say "about". And I was referring to UK beer, not weak foreign
> stuff.
And I was bragging. Don't know why. Never mind, then.
david56
> david56 wrote:
> > ski...@attbi.com spake thus:
> >> John Holmes wrote:
> >>> Skitt wrote:
> >>>> david56 wrote:
>
> >>>>> A gallon is about as much beer as a person can drink in an evening
> >>>>> without being taken seriously dead.
> >>>>
> >>>> Hah! Some years ago I drank more than that in an evening and was
> >>>> still posting to this group until the last beer was gone. I think
> >>>> the most I put away in an evening usually was around 1.4 gallons US
> >>>> (15 12-oz cans).
> >>>
> >>> That's 1.17 gallons Imperial (5.3 litres). Not so very different
> >>> from what David said.
> >>
> >> Seventeen percent error, it looks like, and I was nowhere near being
> >> dead.
> >
> > I did say "about". And I was referring to UK beer, not weak foreign
> > stuff.
>
> And I was bragging. Don't know why. Never mind, then.
Never mind indeed.
I would have put "bragging" down as Rightpondian. Is my radar for
pondian differences faulty?
Skitt
> ski...@attbi.com spake thus:
>> And I was bragging. Don't know why. Never mind, then.
>
> Never mind indeed.
>
> I would have put "bragging" down as Rightpondian. Is my radar for
> pondian differences faulty?
I have known "bragging" in Leftpondia ever since I got here, 54 years ago.
"Boasting" is the one I have heard only seldom.
Odysseus
>
> in article MPG.195ccdd0e...@news.cis.dfn.de, david56 at
> bass.b...@ntlworld.com wrote on 6/20/03 12:53am:
>
> > without being taken seriously dead.
>
> 3.89 litres
>
I'm mistaken about his origin David is probably referring to the
Imperial gallon, which is equivalent to about 4.55 litres.
--Odysseus
Lungfish
bass.b...@ntlworld.com wrote on 6/21/03 3:09 PM:
> ski...@attbi.com spake thus:
>
>> John Holmes wrote:
>>> Skitt wrote:
>>>> david56 wrote:
>>
>>>>> A gallon is about as much beer as a person can drink in an evening
>>>>> without being taken seriously dead.
>>>>
>>>> Hah! Some years ago I drank more than that in an evening and was
>>>> still posting to this group until the last beer was gone. I think
>>>> the most I put away in an evening usually was around 1.4 gallons US
>>>> (15 12-oz cans).
>>>
>>> That's 1.17 gallons Imperial (5.3 litres). Not so very different from
>>> what David said.
>>
>> Seventeen percent error, it looks like, and I was nowhere near being dead.
>
> I did say "about". And I was referring to UK beer, not weak foreign
> stuff.
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale ALC. 5.6% BY VOL.
Pranqster Belgian Style Golden Ale ALC./VOL. 7.6%
Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout ALC./VOL. 8.9%
Bigfoot Barleywine Style Ale ALC. 9.6% BY VOL.
mb
...
> > To the USA, a milliard is a kind of duck.
>
> Indeed; see:
>
> http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/anas/a._platyrhynchos$narr
> ative.html
>
> but to fill in more, also a President; see:
>
> http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/mf13.html
>
> Henry Polard || An iota of difference.
Google does better, without skipping an iota: "mill yard" brings 4270 hits.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> david56 wrote:
> > ski...@attbi.com spake thus:
>
> >> And I was bragging. Don't know why. Never mind, then.
> >
> > Never mind indeed.
> >
> > I would have put "bragging" down as Rightpondian. Is my radar for
> > pondian differences faulty?
Obviously, neither is Leftpondian. "Every heart beats true 'neath the
red, white, and, blue, where there's never a boast or brag".
> I have known "bragging" in Leftpondia ever since I got here, 54
> years ago. "Boasting" is the one I have heard only seldom.
"Bragging" is what we most commonly did in Chicago, but "boasting"
also occurred, and the word never struck me as at all unusual.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Sometimes I think the surest sign
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |that intelligent life exists
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |elsewhere in the universe is that
|none of it has tried to contact us.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | Calvin
(650)857-7572
David Wolff
mb <azyt...@mail.com> wrote:
[snippage]
> People here keep mentioning some French billion for 10^9 (that might
> exist in some obscure government cubicles) as if it were part of
> current usage. To footfolk a milliard is a milliard, and "billion"
> evokes some inimaginable number like 10^12 or thereabouts. That's why
> US defense budgets in newspapers always sound a thousand times more
> impressive than they already are.
Perhaps the US govt really *is* using "million-million"s for the
budget. That would explain a lot about our taxes.
Thanks --
David
(Remove "xx" to reply.)
Steve Hayes
I saw a flying object that I was unable to identify, other than that it was in
the sky and apparently flying. I could therefore say that I had seen an
unidentified flying object.
But my visitor's claim was that he had identified such objects as alien
spacecraft. I would think that, by definition, the sets of idfentified and
unidentified objects are mutually exclusive. No object can belong to both
sets.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
rewboss
pan.2003.06.20....@privacy.net...
> And I feel constrained to point this out, in memory of a certain reference
> to pubic hairs.
Even you don't have room for a trillion of those...
rewboss
VA.0000025...@nospam.aaisp.org...
> In article news:<bcukl0$nbkn1$1...@ID-185204.news.dfncis.de>,
> Rewboss wrote:
> > I well remember, several years ago now, the Daily Telegraph
> > announcing that it was switching from the "British"
> > definition of billion to the definition commonly used in
> > the US and most of Europe, ...
>
> It's that "and most of Europe" that worries me. The evidence
> seems to be that most of Europe believes a billion to be a
> million million, but believes that *English speakers* use (and
> have always used) the term to mean a thousand million.
Gee, not only have I confused myself, I've confused everybody else.
I was incorrect, okay? My memory was faulty. I was corrected. Okay?
Thank you.
Professor Redwine
> Gee, not only have I confused myself, I've confused everybody else.
>
> I was incorrect, okay? My memory was faulty. I was corrected. Okay?
>
> Thank you.
Will we let him off? Just this once? I think we should. A little charity
goes a long way.
Mike Oliver
> It's that "and most of Europe" that worries me. The evidence
> seems to be that most of Europe believes a billion to be a
> million million, but believes that *English speakers* use (and
> have always used) the term to mean a thousand million.
I'm curious where you get that "most of Europe believes a billion
to be a million million".
In Italy, the only case I know personally, the word "billione"
exists only in dictionaries. 10^9 is "un milliardo"; 10^12
is "mille milliardi".
Daniel James
Professor Redwine wrote:
> Yes, this got me too. I learnt it as D, but found it in the
> COD as da.
Hmm. I'm sure I learnt D, as well.
Google is your friend:
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/prefixes.html tells me "da" is
right
Interesting: I hadn't come across yotta, zetta, zepto, or yocto
before; nor had I seen the page (liked to that given above) on
prefixes for binary multiples. I think it may take some time for me
to become accustomed to referring to "kibibytes"!
Cheers,
Daniel.
Daniel James
> given definition stopped the English-speaking word from finding
> another?
Dunno guv'nor. You got me there.
What's the answer, then? <smile>
Cheers,
Daniel.
Daniel James
wrote:
> I was incorrect, okay? My memory was faulty. I was corrected.
> Okay?
Yeah, Okay, I think.
The trouble is that I can well believe that the Torygraph might
have reported exactly what you said it did, in the mistaken belief
that what they were reporting was fact - or worse, in an attempt to
persuade the readership of the lie that the change would bring
British usage into line with Europe as well as the US.
If, however, they never printed that then I suppose I shall have to
forgive them!
Cheers,
Daniel.