This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I found this phrase to be useless:
The original meaning, since the beginnings of modern times, is...
"The original meaning" is more clear in meaning, while "since the beginnings of modern times" is somewhat redundant and a lot more vague. If it was the original meaning, then we could assume that it has been since the "beginnings of modern times," whatever that means. When was "the beginnings of modern times?" A hundred years ago? A thousand years ago? Last week? Where/when/by whom was the word coined? What information am I supposed to obtain from this phrase? Or why not just omit the meaningless phrase altogether?
-- 68.77.118.13 03:21, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
!!!!!ETHNOCENTRISM ALERT!!!!!! There are too many European languages mentioned in this article. Please add more diversity and/or multiculturalism.
Given that most English speaking countries, including USA, Britain, Australia, Canada have adopted the US usage. It only makes sense that, in Wikipedia, an English encyclopedia, we follow the U.S. convention: one billion equals one thousand millions. The alternative to such convention is to avoid using this ambiguous term all together.
I don't think the other english countries had standarized to use the US value for billion. Please provide references if that is really true. Also it would be good to have in mind that English is THE international language. Similar words like "billon" in spanish, or "billion" in french, means 10^12, and these languages are getting into the ambiguety now. While all these languages have a similiar word to milliard to say one thounsand million.
The origin of the word is bi (twice) million (million), one million million, 2*6=12 zeroes.
And the problem is if we use billion for 10^9 ¿what should we use for 10^12? The whole numbering system breaks!! -- dax5
Please see my discussion of Names for Large Numbers. -- Stephen001
The citation from Nicolas Chuquet is wrong.
He defined billion = 10^12,
see
http://www.miakinen.net/vrac/nombres#lettres_zillions (french)
An explanation for the mis-citation might be here
http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/co/17069/1.html (german)
Also, according to
http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/7/7-451.html
in Italian and Russian the 10^9-system is used with the exception
that "billion" is used as a less frequent synonym of "milliard".
--
Gdm 11:14, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I removed
as I don't believe it's true. According to the Manual of Style, this is one of the words to avoid in Wikipedia. I am not aware of any policy saying a billion is always 109 in Wikipedia. Angela . 17:08, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Well, you just deleted it. The statement that Wikipedia uses "Billion" in the sense of 109 has been in this article for a long time and I think it remains very important. There are many articles linking to "Billion"; some of them talk about the different usages, but many others use the term in the sense of 109 without saying so. It is then important that people who click on the billion link are told what the term means in Wikipedia, precisely because of its very ambiguity: the most likely reason they clicked on the link in the first place is to find out: "what do they mean with a billion?". I agree that it would be preferable to avoid the word altogether, and I added that to the article. But that alone won't help the hapless surfer who comes here from George_W._Bush or from Big Bang. AxelBoldt 08:39, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Why do americans try to rape us with the imperial system. Nothing makes sense - How many miles is 1 yard?? How many feet is 1 mile,... c'mon... adopt the international metric system and make your life easier. English world is no more technology leader. 1 billion is (1.000.000)^2, trillion is (1.000.000)^3 and so on...
True or false: there are still plenty of English speakers (in no particular country on earth) who still think that the proper meaning of this word is 10^12. 66.245.90.177 14:34, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I am British and Australian, a scientist, engineer and teacher. Reading the current article I am surprised to find that it suggests that British and Australian usage of the word billion now follows the American usage of the word! Sorry, not so. In both the UK and Australia (and many other English speaking countries I have worked in) the American billion 10^9 is only used when referring to money values - all other usage including science, maths, engineering, construction, surveying, mapping, teaching.... etc, uses the correct value of 10^12.
Jed aus
I disagree with the hard-and-fast division into "English" and "non-English" in the Billion and Trillion (which is too definite IMO) articles, (but agree the accepted Wikipedia value should be the US one). Here is why.
My Collins English-German dictionary, third edition, purchased in England 1997, has this entry:
Trillion n (Brit) Trillion f; (US) Billion f.
Now the Trillion referred to is the German for 1 followed by 18 zeroes, and Billion is the German word for 1 followed by 12 zeroes. My few German acquaintances tell me they know this difference between the British and American (US) usage of "Trillion". Similarly for Billion. Also I did once hear an English-speaking person use "milliard", I had to ask them what it was! They (a well educated but non-British person) thought it was a common English word.
My Cassell's English-Italian dictionary, admittedly an old 1985 edition, makes the same distinction in this way:
Billion Bilione (English, 1,000,000,000,000; Amer. 1,000,000,000)
Similar distinction for Trillion. Neither divides the usage into "English" and "non-English", speaking or otherwise.
Admittedly current usage in the United Kingdom is either confusion or has adopted the American (US) usage. This has certainly been the case in the financial industry. I was taught the 'old' British usage of both terms in a school run by Americans in a British colony (helps to pass the British exams).
The www.unc.edu link in Talk:Trillion above explains this, so I feel the articles should reflect this admittedly ambiguous difference. I tend to clarify when speaking English to well-educated non-British Europeans (who are aware of the problem with Billion and Trillion), as to exactly which I am using ("American" or "British") to make it clear.
Having said all that I'm not sure what's best: American and non-American; English and non-English; British and American (how the dictionaries usually give it); standard usage and non-standard? - Wikibob | Talk 11:06, 2004 Jul 21 (UTC)
COME ON!!
Puerto Rico shouldn't be included as one of the exceptions. The most commonly spoken (and one of the official languages) is spanish, and in our use the word billion is meant to be 1 000 000 000 000, while some people use it meaning 1 000 000 000 because of US influence, but this usage is incorrect as anyone who knows spanish will tell you.
For that reason, Puerto Rico shouldn't be included in that list
To balance the article's 1997 quotation from Ken Moore, the current (2004) alt.usage.english FAQ [1] includes the text:
Ian Cairns 00:31, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Would it assist to create two new pages 'Long scale' and 'Short scale' and put all the history & discussion into these? These pages could also list the countries that adhere to the particular convention. Then, we could refer just to long or short scale rather than English-speaking (plus Brazil, etc) vs Non-English-speaking (except Brazil, etc). This should simply the articles on billion, trillion, etc. etc. Also, despite the encouragement to avoid using these terms, there are over 2000 articles in en.wikipedia that use Billion, most of which use the short scale as far as I can tell. Perhaps we do need to acknowledge this fact when we advise against using the terms? Ian Cairns 12:32, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I've never heard these terms used in English. I just did a Google search on billion trillion "short scale" "long scale" and got only two hits, both on Wikipedia mirrors, both referring to this article.
Are these phrases in general use? They're very convenient and very evocative, but have they been used outside this article? Are they real English phrases, or are they translations into English of phrases in general use in some other language? If we're going to use these phrases here, we shouldn't just say the American used is termed the "short scale", we should state clearly who calls it that and where the term arose. [[User:Dpbsmith| Dpbsmith (talk)]] 01:32, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Nicolas Chuquet is credited as the first person to put down in writing the systematic series of number names byllion, tryllion, quadrilion, etc. But did he use the long scale exclusively? I was fascinated by Robert Munafo's suggestion that Chuquet was inconsistent: [2]. Munafo exhibits a page image showing Chuquet's use of the long scale, and a quotation indicating that he used the short scale. The accuracy of the quotation has, however, been strongly disputed by Michael Chuquet, particularly in Talk:Binary prefix, where he says "One knows that Nicolas Chuquet used the long scale exclusively.... But, a falsified quotation, taken again by hundreds of Web site and a pseudo-scientist 'lucky find' (A double use of Chuquet himself !) let believe the opposite."
I contacted Munafo for the source of the quotation, and he replied:
Yikes! A dubious assertion of fact in Wikipedia was picked up, pruned of Wikipedian attribution by a process of quotation and requotation, promulgated to a number of other websites, and then (alas) picked up by me as a source to reference in working on current Wikipedia articles. The article from which Munafo got the quotation read:
The original quote in French was inserted by User:Fantasy [3].
I've left a query on User:Fantasy's page. There are really two distinct issues here.
The first is whether the quotation from Chuquet is correct; that is, is there or is there not a passage in Chuquet's work containing the word "au lieu de dire mille millions, on dira byllion?"
The second is a translation issue. Anyway, the question is, if the passage is accurately quoted, can it possibly mean anything other than a "byllion" = "mille millions" = "a thousand millions" = 1,000,000,000? [[User:Dpbsmith| Dpbsmith (talk)]] 12:09, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Some time ago I tried looking this up in Chuquet. The version I found was a modern book with large excerpts from Chuquet and some commentary. I'm pretty certain that the quote on the internet is just wrong - it should be "au lieu de dire million millions, on dira byllion." I didn't find any evidence of Chuquet using a 10^9 billion. [[User:Reube n|Reuben]] 01:50, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
What would be the best title for a Wikipedia article for the number 1,000,000,000 itself rather than an ambiguous term?? 66.245.102.77 17:46, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The term Milliard is obsolete in modern British English. See for example long scale which has had that description for a little while now. Even in the days before the UK adopted the 'short scale' billion, Milliard was extremely rarely used in English - thousand million was far more common. Ian Cairns 23:41, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I would also like to remove the word obsolete, but I'll wait. I use the word, am a native English speaker, and have seen its use in several government or national media reports: Australian, Indian, Dutch, Russian (when these last two translate to English). Google on "milliard government" and see that the word is still used by English speaking people around the world. I would agree that very few are aware of the word, but the same can be said of many other words that are not obsolete. I also agree that dictionaries are often wrong. How about very rare? I have no view on the use of milliard to avoid ambiguity, though. - Wikibob | Talk 23:08, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC) Some backpedalling on my part, I've just seen a reference to the 6th edition of Australian Government Publishing Service's Style Manual that recommends avoiding milliard. Some non-news examples of usage: South African pastor writing on popoluation numbers in 2001, coin and paper note collecting. I still think its rarity (in the UK and US, but please note not rare among non-English Europeans who have learnt English) does not justify the obsolete tag. - Wikibob | Talk 23:41, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)
Hello, this is Eric Kvaalen, the one who added a sentence suggesting the use of the word "milliard", and who deleted the word "obsolete". It is true that the word is not used much--the only other people I hear use it are people whose native language is not English. But I don't think the word was ever very common (maybe we could check the Oxford English Dictionary). I suspect it has always been a minority word which exists because of its use in other languages. As an American who has lived abroad for most of the last twenty some years, I think the use of billion for 10^9 is a sort of (unconscious) "American imperialism", and I think efforts should be made to solve the problem. My suggestion is to use the word "milliard" and I think calling it "obsolete" will make people think that one shouldn't use it. EricK 06:43, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The latest OED draft entry gives the note, "The term is now largely superseded by <billion>." None of their recent cites use "milliard" in the precise sense of "one thousand million" but instead as an unspecified large number:
(n.) 1990 Man 25 95 Milliards of deities assembled in front of the cave. (adj.) 1981 'J. GASH' Vatican Rip (1983) xviii. 139, I saw a milliard doubts flicker across her face. 1991 'J. GASH' Great Calif. Game (1992) viii. 64 Somebody was changing a picture, a Philip Steer painted in a milliard divisionistic dots.
(Jonathan Gash, aka John Grant, appears to be a big fan of this sense.)
The latest cite listed for the specific sense is from 1977:
1977 Outlook for Natural Gas (Shell Internat. Petroleum Co.) 3 This will be followed within a year or so by the start up of two schemes, each involving 10 milliard cubic metres (7 million tonnes) a year.
But a 1974 cite suggests the term was already moribund then:
1974 Encounter 43 IV. 58/2 English schoolchildren are still taught that a thousand million is a milliard.
That was the year that Harold Wilson's government began replacing "milliard" with "billion" in treasury figures, as we've discussed before:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3EF3620E.244F471E@midway.uchicago.edu
How about replacing the sentence
"The obsolete word "milliard" can be used for 10^9 to avoid ambiguity, though this usage is unfamilar to some speakers of English"
with
"Use of 'thousand million' for 10^9 and 'million million' for 10^12 avoids ambiguity. The old word 'milliard', also found in many other languages, can be used for 10^9, but this usage is unfamiliar to many native English speakers."
EricK 18:11, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
This discussion is originated by the egocentrism, arrogance and prepotency of the United States.
In the International System of Units, one thousand millions is one thousand millons (a number one followed by nine zeros) and one billion is one billion (a number one followed by twelve zeros). Period.
Checking [5] I see that Wikipedia is the ONLY source not to acknowledge that the 1012 meaning is still used. The discussion here would seem to agree with that also. I've added a NPOV tag to draw attention to this discussion, which I only just remembered to check before "fixing" the article. 213.232.66.5 08:18, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
Anyone know how to make the superscripts show in the section titles in the "Contents" box? -- zandperl 02:30, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
The billion related trivia section is enjoyable, but (forgive my poor maths skills, please) it is unclear which billion this refers to. It would be great if someone could sort this out.
It appears that there is simular confusion about the word magnetude. When I put magnetude and select search it directs me to The Disney TV channel and an article about mechanical deformation. Six orders of magnitude commonly means one million, but most American dictionaries suggest that the value of magnetude is variable except in Astronomy where six orders of magnetude = 100 times brighter, which tyically corresponds to only a few times more mass. Can someone who knows how, start a disambiguation page for magnetude? Ccpoodle 03:56, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Mel, You suggest that the long scale Billion (10^12) is in current usage in the UK. Please can you provide any citation for this usage, e.g. newspapers, other media. The BBC and all broadcast media that I have looked at have used the short scale Billion for some time now. Thanks, Ian Cairns 10:12, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, I count anything on the BBC Website as journalism, whatever its subject. As we have to go by WP:CITE, etc., then even if it's true that the relevant reference works, such as dictionaries, are lagging behind the truth, we have to lag behind too. (Though I believe, though from personal experience only, that the use of the British billion is more common than you suggest. If it comes to that, while "metric martyrs" in the sense of trasesman insisting on using non-metric measures may be rare, the use of such measures in the population is very widespread.)
If I can find other citations I'll add them, but Googling is a tiresome business; one has not only to find relevant uses of "billion", but know enough about the subject matter to be able to tell which they mean. -- Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης) 20:43, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I have put "one thousand million or one million million" in the intro sentence for the casual reader who doesn't know that billion has two meanings, and who is spooked by powers of 10. - DavidWBrooks 14:38, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I found this phrase to be useless:
The original meaning, since the beginnings of modern times, is...
"The original meaning" is more clear in meaning, while "since the beginnings of modern times" is somewhat redundant and a lot more vague. If it was the original meaning, then we could assume that it has been since the "beginnings of modern times," whatever that means. When was "the beginnings of modern times?" A hundred years ago? A thousand years ago? Last week? Where/when/by whom was the word coined? What information am I supposed to obtain from this phrase? Or why not just omit the meaningless phrase altogether?
-- 68.77.118.13 03:21, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
!!!!!ETHNOCENTRISM ALERT!!!!!! There are too many European languages mentioned in this article. Please add more diversity and/or multiculturalism.
Given that most English speaking countries, including USA, Britain, Australia, Canada have adopted the US usage. It only makes sense that, in Wikipedia, an English encyclopedia, we follow the U.S. convention: one billion equals one thousand millions. The alternative to such convention is to avoid using this ambiguous term all together.
I don't think the other english countries had standarized to use the US value for billion. Please provide references if that is really true. Also it would be good to have in mind that English is THE international language. Similar words like "billon" in spanish, or "billion" in french, means 10^12, and these languages are getting into the ambiguety now. While all these languages have a similiar word to milliard to say one thounsand million.
The origin of the word is bi (twice) million (million), one million million, 2*6=12 zeroes.
And the problem is if we use billion for 10^9 ¿what should we use for 10^12? The whole numbering system breaks!! -- dax5
Please see my discussion of Names for Large Numbers. -- Stephen001
The citation from Nicolas Chuquet is wrong.
He defined billion = 10^12,
see
http://www.miakinen.net/vrac/nombres#lettres_zillions (french)
An explanation for the mis-citation might be here
http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/co/17069/1.html (german)
Also, according to
http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/7/7-451.html
in Italian and Russian the 10^9-system is used with the exception
that "billion" is used as a less frequent synonym of "milliard".
--
Gdm 11:14, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I removed
as I don't believe it's true. According to the Manual of Style, this is one of the words to avoid in Wikipedia. I am not aware of any policy saying a billion is always 109 in Wikipedia. Angela . 17:08, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Well, you just deleted it. The statement that Wikipedia uses "Billion" in the sense of 109 has been in this article for a long time and I think it remains very important. There are many articles linking to "Billion"; some of them talk about the different usages, but many others use the term in the sense of 109 without saying so. It is then important that people who click on the billion link are told what the term means in Wikipedia, precisely because of its very ambiguity: the most likely reason they clicked on the link in the first place is to find out: "what do they mean with a billion?". I agree that it would be preferable to avoid the word altogether, and I added that to the article. But that alone won't help the hapless surfer who comes here from George_W._Bush or from Big Bang. AxelBoldt 08:39, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Why do americans try to rape us with the imperial system. Nothing makes sense - How many miles is 1 yard?? How many feet is 1 mile,... c'mon... adopt the international metric system and make your life easier. English world is no more technology leader. 1 billion is (1.000.000)^2, trillion is (1.000.000)^3 and so on...
True or false: there are still plenty of English speakers (in no particular country on earth) who still think that the proper meaning of this word is 10^12. 66.245.90.177 14:34, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I am British and Australian, a scientist, engineer and teacher. Reading the current article I am surprised to find that it suggests that British and Australian usage of the word billion now follows the American usage of the word! Sorry, not so. In both the UK and Australia (and many other English speaking countries I have worked in) the American billion 10^9 is only used when referring to money values - all other usage including science, maths, engineering, construction, surveying, mapping, teaching.... etc, uses the correct value of 10^12.
Jed aus
I disagree with the hard-and-fast division into "English" and "non-English" in the Billion and Trillion (which is too definite IMO) articles, (but agree the accepted Wikipedia value should be the US one). Here is why.
My Collins English-German dictionary, third edition, purchased in England 1997, has this entry:
Trillion n (Brit) Trillion f; (US) Billion f.
Now the Trillion referred to is the German for 1 followed by 18 zeroes, and Billion is the German word for 1 followed by 12 zeroes. My few German acquaintances tell me they know this difference between the British and American (US) usage of "Trillion". Similarly for Billion. Also I did once hear an English-speaking person use "milliard", I had to ask them what it was! They (a well educated but non-British person) thought it was a common English word.
My Cassell's English-Italian dictionary, admittedly an old 1985 edition, makes the same distinction in this way:
Billion Bilione (English, 1,000,000,000,000; Amer. 1,000,000,000)
Similar distinction for Trillion. Neither divides the usage into "English" and "non-English", speaking or otherwise.
Admittedly current usage in the United Kingdom is either confusion or has adopted the American (US) usage. This has certainly been the case in the financial industry. I was taught the 'old' British usage of both terms in a school run by Americans in a British colony (helps to pass the British exams).
The www.unc.edu link in Talk:Trillion above explains this, so I feel the articles should reflect this admittedly ambiguous difference. I tend to clarify when speaking English to well-educated non-British Europeans (who are aware of the problem with Billion and Trillion), as to exactly which I am using ("American" or "British") to make it clear.
Having said all that I'm not sure what's best: American and non-American; English and non-English; British and American (how the dictionaries usually give it); standard usage and non-standard? - Wikibob | Talk 11:06, 2004 Jul 21 (UTC)
COME ON!!
Puerto Rico shouldn't be included as one of the exceptions. The most commonly spoken (and one of the official languages) is spanish, and in our use the word billion is meant to be 1 000 000 000 000, while some people use it meaning 1 000 000 000 because of US influence, but this usage is incorrect as anyone who knows spanish will tell you.
For that reason, Puerto Rico shouldn't be included in that list
To balance the article's 1997 quotation from Ken Moore, the current (2004) alt.usage.english FAQ [1] includes the text:
Ian Cairns 00:31, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Would it assist to create two new pages 'Long scale' and 'Short scale' and put all the history & discussion into these? These pages could also list the countries that adhere to the particular convention. Then, we could refer just to long or short scale rather than English-speaking (plus Brazil, etc) vs Non-English-speaking (except Brazil, etc). This should simply the articles on billion, trillion, etc. etc. Also, despite the encouragement to avoid using these terms, there are over 2000 articles in en.wikipedia that use Billion, most of which use the short scale as far as I can tell. Perhaps we do need to acknowledge this fact when we advise against using the terms? Ian Cairns 12:32, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I've never heard these terms used in English. I just did a Google search on billion trillion "short scale" "long scale" and got only two hits, both on Wikipedia mirrors, both referring to this article.
Are these phrases in general use? They're very convenient and very evocative, but have they been used outside this article? Are they real English phrases, or are they translations into English of phrases in general use in some other language? If we're going to use these phrases here, we shouldn't just say the American used is termed the "short scale", we should state clearly who calls it that and where the term arose. [[User:Dpbsmith| Dpbsmith (talk)]] 01:32, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Nicolas Chuquet is credited as the first person to put down in writing the systematic series of number names byllion, tryllion, quadrilion, etc. But did he use the long scale exclusively? I was fascinated by Robert Munafo's suggestion that Chuquet was inconsistent: [2]. Munafo exhibits a page image showing Chuquet's use of the long scale, and a quotation indicating that he used the short scale. The accuracy of the quotation has, however, been strongly disputed by Michael Chuquet, particularly in Talk:Binary prefix, where he says "One knows that Nicolas Chuquet used the long scale exclusively.... But, a falsified quotation, taken again by hundreds of Web site and a pseudo-scientist 'lucky find' (A double use of Chuquet himself !) let believe the opposite."
I contacted Munafo for the source of the quotation, and he replied:
Yikes! A dubious assertion of fact in Wikipedia was picked up, pruned of Wikipedian attribution by a process of quotation and requotation, promulgated to a number of other websites, and then (alas) picked up by me as a source to reference in working on current Wikipedia articles. The article from which Munafo got the quotation read:
The original quote in French was inserted by User:Fantasy [3].
I've left a query on User:Fantasy's page. There are really two distinct issues here.
The first is whether the quotation from Chuquet is correct; that is, is there or is there not a passage in Chuquet's work containing the word "au lieu de dire mille millions, on dira byllion?"
The second is a translation issue. Anyway, the question is, if the passage is accurately quoted, can it possibly mean anything other than a "byllion" = "mille millions" = "a thousand millions" = 1,000,000,000? [[User:Dpbsmith| Dpbsmith (talk)]] 12:09, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Some time ago I tried looking this up in Chuquet. The version I found was a modern book with large excerpts from Chuquet and some commentary. I'm pretty certain that the quote on the internet is just wrong - it should be "au lieu de dire million millions, on dira byllion." I didn't find any evidence of Chuquet using a 10^9 billion. [[User:Reube n|Reuben]] 01:50, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
What would be the best title for a Wikipedia article for the number 1,000,000,000 itself rather than an ambiguous term?? 66.245.102.77 17:46, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The term Milliard is obsolete in modern British English. See for example long scale which has had that description for a little while now. Even in the days before the UK adopted the 'short scale' billion, Milliard was extremely rarely used in English - thousand million was far more common. Ian Cairns 23:41, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I would also like to remove the word obsolete, but I'll wait. I use the word, am a native English speaker, and have seen its use in several government or national media reports: Australian, Indian, Dutch, Russian (when these last two translate to English). Google on "milliard government" and see that the word is still used by English speaking people around the world. I would agree that very few are aware of the word, but the same can be said of many other words that are not obsolete. I also agree that dictionaries are often wrong. How about very rare? I have no view on the use of milliard to avoid ambiguity, though. - Wikibob | Talk 23:08, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC) Some backpedalling on my part, I've just seen a reference to the 6th edition of Australian Government Publishing Service's Style Manual that recommends avoiding milliard. Some non-news examples of usage: South African pastor writing on popoluation numbers in 2001, coin and paper note collecting. I still think its rarity (in the UK and US, but please note not rare among non-English Europeans who have learnt English) does not justify the obsolete tag. - Wikibob | Talk 23:41, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)
Hello, this is Eric Kvaalen, the one who added a sentence suggesting the use of the word "milliard", and who deleted the word "obsolete". It is true that the word is not used much--the only other people I hear use it are people whose native language is not English. But I don't think the word was ever very common (maybe we could check the Oxford English Dictionary). I suspect it has always been a minority word which exists because of its use in other languages. As an American who has lived abroad for most of the last twenty some years, I think the use of billion for 10^9 is a sort of (unconscious) "American imperialism", and I think efforts should be made to solve the problem. My suggestion is to use the word "milliard" and I think calling it "obsolete" will make people think that one shouldn't use it. EricK 06:43, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The latest OED draft entry gives the note, "The term is now largely superseded by <billion>." None of their recent cites use "milliard" in the precise sense of "one thousand million" but instead as an unspecified large number:
(n.) 1990 Man 25 95 Milliards of deities assembled in front of the cave. (adj.) 1981 'J. GASH' Vatican Rip (1983) xviii. 139, I saw a milliard doubts flicker across her face. 1991 'J. GASH' Great Calif. Game (1992) viii. 64 Somebody was changing a picture, a Philip Steer painted in a milliard divisionistic dots.
(Jonathan Gash, aka John Grant, appears to be a big fan of this sense.)
The latest cite listed for the specific sense is from 1977:
1977 Outlook for Natural Gas (Shell Internat. Petroleum Co.) 3 This will be followed within a year or so by the start up of two schemes, each involving 10 milliard cubic metres (7 million tonnes) a year.
But a 1974 cite suggests the term was already moribund then:
1974 Encounter 43 IV. 58/2 English schoolchildren are still taught that a thousand million is a milliard.
That was the year that Harold Wilson's government began replacing "milliard" with "billion" in treasury figures, as we've discussed before:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3EF3620E.244F471E@midway.uchicago.edu
How about replacing the sentence
"The obsolete word "milliard" can be used for 10^9 to avoid ambiguity, though this usage is unfamilar to some speakers of English"
with
"Use of 'thousand million' for 10^9 and 'million million' for 10^12 avoids ambiguity. The old word 'milliard', also found in many other languages, can be used for 10^9, but this usage is unfamiliar to many native English speakers."
EricK 18:11, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
This discussion is originated by the egocentrism, arrogance and prepotency of the United States.
In the International System of Units, one thousand millions is one thousand millons (a number one followed by nine zeros) and one billion is one billion (a number one followed by twelve zeros). Period.
Checking [5] I see that Wikipedia is the ONLY source not to acknowledge that the 1012 meaning is still used. The discussion here would seem to agree with that also. I've added a NPOV tag to draw attention to this discussion, which I only just remembered to check before "fixing" the article. 213.232.66.5 08:18, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
Anyone know how to make the superscripts show in the section titles in the "Contents" box? -- zandperl 02:30, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
The billion related trivia section is enjoyable, but (forgive my poor maths skills, please) it is unclear which billion this refers to. It would be great if someone could sort this out.
It appears that there is simular confusion about the word magnetude. When I put magnetude and select search it directs me to The Disney TV channel and an article about mechanical deformation. Six orders of magnitude commonly means one million, but most American dictionaries suggest that the value of magnetude is variable except in Astronomy where six orders of magnetude = 100 times brighter, which tyically corresponds to only a few times more mass. Can someone who knows how, start a disambiguation page for magnetude? Ccpoodle 03:56, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Mel, You suggest that the long scale Billion (10^12) is in current usage in the UK. Please can you provide any citation for this usage, e.g. newspapers, other media. The BBC and all broadcast media that I have looked at have used the short scale Billion for some time now. Thanks, Ian Cairns 10:12, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, I count anything on the BBC Website as journalism, whatever its subject. As we have to go by WP:CITE, etc., then even if it's true that the relevant reference works, such as dictionaries, are lagging behind the truth, we have to lag behind too. (Though I believe, though from personal experience only, that the use of the British billion is more common than you suggest. If it comes to that, while "metric martyrs" in the sense of trasesman insisting on using non-metric measures may be rare, the use of such measures in the population is very widespread.)
If I can find other citations I'll add them, but Googling is a tiresome business; one has not only to find relevant uses of "billion", but know enough about the subject matter to be able to tell which they mean. -- Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης) 20:43, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I have put "one thousand million or one million million" in the intro sentence for the casual reader who doesn't know that billion has two meanings, and who is spooked by powers of 10. - DavidWBrooks 14:38, 26 April 2006 (UTC)