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I think 200 million million is a British English thing because of the long scale/short scale ambiguity: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales h
by jwmerrill 8y ago
I think 200 million million is a British English thing because of the long scale/short scale ambiguity:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales
- EmbarrassedFuel 8y agoAs a Brit, no one has made the million/milliard distinction for my entire life. 1000 million is a billion as far as anyone is concerned, a million million is a trillion. It’s just comically bad writing.
- jwmerrill 8y agoGood to know. I think the writing in this article is not so good, but I've seen this usage by plenty of respectable writers. Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" is not comically bad writing, and it's full of even more outlandish usages of "million million million ..." https://www.google.com/search?q=brief+history+of+time+"million+million" https://www.google.com/search?q=brief+history+of+time+"milli...
- EmbarrassedFuel 8y agoAh yes point taken: I was implying that the author had used this (nowadays) non-standard construction in order to add some sensationalism.