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Interesting that 兆 is sometimes used in Hanzi for a trillion. Core meanings 兆 include 'portent' or 'omen' which could cause a central banker to lament 'maybe we
by escherplex 11y ago
Interesting that 兆 is sometimes used in Hanzi for a trillion. Core meanings 兆 include 'portent' or 'omen' which could cause a central banker to lament 'maybe we've printed too much currency'. English used to have a simple system for naming large numbers using the French suffix 'illion' for 'million' and adding prefixes for powers of a million (see OED). So a billion was (10 ^ 6) ^ 2 and by extension trillion was (10 ^6) ^ 3. A billion today was called a thousand million then. However the US pushed for the value of 10 ^ 9 as a billion (with trillion as 10 ^ 12) and back in 1975 that became the 'world' standard.
- telotortium 11y agoThe world standard for English -- the long scale is standard in many other languages.
- escherplex 11y agoThat's why 'world' was in quotes. Hubris is tedious, nationalist or otherwise. I remember visiting someone's oversized digs who had an old Sony 3/4 inch videocassette archives of Charles Kuralt's 'On the Road' series. In one, Kuralt was whining about Jimmy Carter's attempts to impose the metric system as US standard and ended his rant with 'there's nothing romantic about a centimeter worm' [from some 'inch worm measuring a marigold' pop song]. That general sentiment held and subsequent attempts at metrification fizzled out. And we know what impact mixed standards had on construction of the mirror for the Hubble space telescope.