And lo on Wed, 21 May 2008 10:30:14 +0100, scott <sco### [at] scottcom> did  
spake, saying:

>>>> Well, even if you try to be metric, the Americans have a different  
>>>> idea about what constitutes a "billion"...
>>>
>>> Dude, you're so out of date, were you even born when the UK officially  
>>> abandoned the idea that a million million is a billion?
>>
>> It's new to me that it was *ever* abandoned. (Why would you do such a  
>> thing?)
>
> To avoid confusion?

With whom? Oh wait silly question.

> IIRC back in the 80s (or maybe even earlier)

'74 according to Wikipedia.

> the UK officially stopped using "billion" to mean 1e12, and since then  
> it has always meant 1e9.  Did you really think all those figures in the  
> financial part of the paper that say $6bn mean $6000000000000 and not  
> $6000000000?

Still amusing that a bi(mi)llion is officially a thousand million,  
linguists of the future are going to have so much fun with this.

Perhaps we should just drop the names and use £6e9 or £3e12 for anything  
over a million?

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

Post a reply to this message