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It's actually circa 1914 British usage rather than an error.
by nvoorhies 9y ago
It's actually circa 1914 British usage rather than an error.
- EGreg 9y agoReally? What'd they call a one followed by nine zeros then?
- dahtguy 9y agoNot sure what they called our definition of a billion, but that was definitely the naming scheme [0] [0] https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/explore/how-many-is-a-billion https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/explore/how-many-is-a-bill...
- contravariant 9y agoA milliard. The word is still used by countries that use the 'long scale', which has the nice property that a billion = (1 million)^2 and a quadrillion = (1 million)^4 etc. If you can count in greek this also means that an n-illion times an m-illion equals an (n+m)-illion.
- cat199 9y agoThis strikes me as a vastly superior way of doing things.. Any insight as to why things went 'the wrong way'?
- sundarurfriend 9y agoApparently [1], both ways of counting originate from France. This 'superior' way came first and was adapted by the British, then our current way of naming was created and adopted by the US. Wiki says this one then became the standard because of USA's dominance in the financial world. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_large_numbers#Extensions_of_the_standard_dictionary_numbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_large_numbers#Extensi...
- 725686 9y agoIn many countries it is called one thousand million.