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The person who wrote this thought they'd be clever by using the SI prefix "centi", not realizing that it means one one-hundredth (as in "centimeter"). They shou
by serevi 3y ago
The person who wrote this thought they'd be clever by using the SI prefix "centi", not realizing that it means one one-hundredth (as in "centimeter"). They should have used the prefix "hecto", which means one hundred.
- Detrytus 3y agoI always admired how simple, yet clever the SI prefix scheme is: use Roman numerals for sub-units (centi-, mili-), and Greek numerals for multiplies (deka-, hecto-, kilo-). Although I guess a century ago average well educated person was much more familiar with Latin and Greek languages.
- Brian_K_White 3y agoAnd in the same breath, century is not 1/100th of a year.
- Detrytus 3y agoBut century is not an SI unit :)
- WrongAssumption 3y agoYes, century, not centiury.
- Someone 3y agoIf only. Deci- is from Latin, too, and both mega- and micro- derive from Greek.
- pradn 3y agoHuh, I had no idea about this distinction - quite clever.
- zzzeek 3y agothen explain centipedes
- alpark3 3y ago1/100th of a pede
- iancmceachern 3y agoPedes must be crazy, a million legs like that
- mdp2021 3y agoIt is because you are confusing an etymology (in 'centenary', 'centennial', 'centigrade'...) with a prefixing (in 'centimeter', 'centigram', 'centiliter'...).
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mensetmanusman 3y agoPhew, you helped me realize I have won at life and am also a centi-millionaire.
- varelse 3y ago[dead]
- karmakaze 3y agoAlso confusingly juxtaposed with milli* like it's 1/100th of 1/1000th.
- montalbano 3y agoIt can be used either way, e.g. the word "century" means 100 years. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/centi- https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/centi- Update: looked into this more and the "centi" part of the SI system comes from the Latin word "centum" which means 100, not 1/100. Definitely seems either usage is acceptable. https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/centimeter https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/centimeter
- Scoundreller 3y agoMaybe, but in Europe, you'll finish off your 33 or 50 centilitre beer in a sitting and possibly a few more.
- Someone 3y agoYes, Latin centum means 100; hence century, and the prefix centi was invented during the French Revolution, meaning 1/100 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centi- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centi-). For hecto-, they took inspiration from the free ἑκατόν (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hecto- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hecto-) (They did the same for 1000 and 1/1000, deriving milli from Latin millum and kilo from Greek χίλιοι, but used Latin for both deca- and deci-, and used Greek for both giga- and micro. So far for consistency) I don’t see how it follows that either usage is acceptable.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- WrongAssumption 3y agoThat’s like saying risky and riskless can be used interchangeably because the both come from the word risk. Edit: I don’t know why I even reached for an analogy, it’s exactly like saying hundred and hundredth are interchangeable.
- montalbano 3y agoNo it's like saying biannual can mean twice a year or once every two years. Dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive. Language evolves.
- jjeaff 3y agointeresting. I always thought a centenarian was someone 100 years or older. now I know it's someone one-one-hundreth of a year old or older.
- MichaelZuo 3y agoNot every word in the english language uses SI prefixes.
- pavlov 3y ago“Centi” is just Latin for hundred, as in centigrade or centipede, or centurion and century. It’s a convention of the SI system that Latin prefixes are the fractional units, but that’s not a feature of the Latin words themselves.
- wombatpm 3y agoI would have gone with decibillionaire
- jasode 3y ago>The person who wrote this thought they'd be clever by using the SI prefix "centi", not realizing that it means one one-hundredth (as in "centimeter"). The "centimillionaire" to describe wealth of $100+ million has been used for many years before this thread's article. Here's an old newspaper article about Enron from 2003: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/09/business/company-man-to-the-end-after-all.html https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/09/business/company-man-to-t... >In one year, Mr. Lay has been transformed from a centimillionaire with huge stock holdings to a multimillionaire whose wealth is mostly tied up in hard-to-sell assets. And some extra trivia... your "correction" and the followup replies is replaying Groundhog Day... e.g. 9 years ago : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8319279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8319279
- DoreenMichele 3y agoOn the upside, HN was smaller back then, so debate about the word was briefer.
- cbsmith 3y agoI would say the rest of the content follows the quality trend the headline established.
- ryanar 3y agois millionaire also incorrect?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- layer8 3y agoI was about to counter with “centinarian” (is that a newborn?), but that’s actually spelled “centenarian”.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]