tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Oct 15 10:52:49 1996
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Re: billion
- From: Niall Hosking <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: billion
- Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 18:52:41 +0100 (BST)
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]> from "William H. Martin" at Oct 15, 96 09:46:58 am
> > ten-thousand million? Isn't that the same as ten billion?
> >
> > I think it should be <wa'SaD'uy'> for one billion (if this sort of stacking
> > is permitted).
>
> I'm sure that our Brittish Brethren are amused at this. The American and
> English (and probably the rest of the world) numbering systems stop
> cooperating once they pass the hundred million mark. An American billion
> is an English thousand million. I believe that an English billion is the
> same as an American trillion; a million millions. I belive that the
> English thousand billion is an American quatrillion, but I'm not sure.
> Meanwhile, the English have a million billion, then a trillion, a
> thousand trillion, a million trillion, and a billion trillion which are
> really big numbers I don't even know how to say in American number
> terminology.
The official terminology is 'trillion' for a thousand billion,
'quadrillion' for million billion, 'quintillion' for billion billion, etc.
As it happens, due to the *highly* unwieldy nature of the British
system, and the prevalence of the American system (which I believe is
used in the SI system), the British now exclusively use the same system
as the Americans. Certainly all the newspapers do, and I have never seen
anyone really use the old system - *way* too clunky. It might be simpler
if we kept this list using the American version, since it is easier.
After all, who regularly uses numbers over 'trillion', unless you're a
scientist...or discussing the US budget deficit <wink>.
> Meanwhile, Klingon numbers get big enough for most things we are likely
> to measure in common conversation, so we don't have all THAT much to
> complain about. Anything beyond {'uy'} is {law'qu'}.
Aye, I agree. Did anyone come up with a term for 'light year', so we
don't have to measure interstellar distances in kellicams? If not *then*
we'd need terms like 'quadrillion' or higher....
> > DloraH
>
> charghwI'
qSeroHS tej'e'
--
Niall Hosking
aka Kserokhs Vaene
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/WebSoc/~884744ho
'Practise random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.'