Comment by throw0101c | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throw0101c | Hacker News Reader

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Interesting notation / digit grouping as well:

> It is written as 1,00,00,000 with the local 2,2,3 style of digit group separators (one lakh is equal to one hundred thousand, and is written as 1,00,000).[1]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crore

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_numbering_system#Use_of...

> In the Indian system, the next powers of ten are called one lakh, ten lakh, one crore, ten crore, one arab (or one hundred crore), and so on; there are new words for every second power of ten (10^(5 + 2n)): lakh (10^5), crore (10^7), arab (10^9), kharab (10^11), etc. In the Western system, the next powers of ten are called one hundred thousand, one million, ten million, one hundred million, one billion (short scale)/one thousand million (long scale), and so on; in the short scale, there are new words for every third power of ten (10^3n): million (10^6), billion (10^9), trillion (10^12), etc.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_numbering_system

> In the Western system,

Surely they mean "in the English system". In German, we have "Milliarde" between "Millionen" and "Billionen", and so on.

In fact, they will end on "-illion" if it's a power of 10^(6n) and on "-illiarde" if it's a power of 10^(6n+3).

c.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales

In the olden days English used have billion as a million million.

For international purposes (america) this “long scale” fall out of use, with he “short scale” being recommended in the U.K. since 1974

> For international purposes (america) this “long scale” fall out of use, with he “short scale” being recommended in the U.K. since 1974

I know a lot of people who didn't get that memo, because I still see the long scale with some regularity.

That said, the short scale is much more common overall.

Where? I'm British and old and, apart from in reference books much older than me, I've never seen the long scale used in any context.

> Where? I'm British and old and, apart from in reference books much older than me, I've never seen the long scale used in any context.

Vestiges of it pop up from time to time. It's not really something you can Google directly for, but as an indication, literally the second hit on Google for "thousand million" - a term that only exists due to the long scale, and which is obsolete in the short scale - is an article about a Brexit-related bus ad:

https://www.independent.ie/world-news/and-finally/brexit-bus...

I'm British, and I'm still sore about this one, even though that "recommendation" was before I was born. The long scale is the right one, darnit. Just because the government says otherwise doesn't make it so.

The best thing I can offer is that the word "billion" and greater should be regarded as cursed, ambiguous, and shouldn't be used any more.

It used to be like this in British English (the so-called long scale, where milliard was 10^9 and billion was a million millions, 10^12).

Now, indeed, the split is roughly along the line of English (and Russian, Turkics and Arabic) on the short scale side and everyone else, especially Continental European language speakers on the other. It's not a universal rule: Brazil is maybe the largest defector from the Continental European group to the short scale, but Canada reinforces the rule by using both, with the choice being dictated by whether you're speaking English or French.

Between? That's odd. In Russian, it goes миллион (million, 10^6), миллиард (milliard, 10^9), триллион (trillion, 10^12), квадриллион (kvadrillion, 10^15), etc in 10^3 increments. "Биллион" isn't a word. It does exist in the macOS dictionary (I just checked) but I've never ever seen or heard it used.

In Russian, the word "биллион" is mainly of historic interest: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%91%D0%B8%D0%BB%D0%BB%D0%B8... (see the note about "Арифметика" Магницкого.)

Since Russia uses a short-scale system, the word is no longer in use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales

> Surely they mean "in the English system".

It's Wikipedia: feel free to click "Edit" and correct/update it.

And then have it reverted soon after.

That's called a long scale (also in use in LATAM) in contrast with a short scale (in use in the US and Canada)

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