[plug] billion (was Unix Epoch: 1 billion seconds breakfast function.)

[Peter Wright]

On Mon, Sep 03, 2001 at 11:51:33AM +0800, John Knight wrote:
> Time for my usual rant of pedantry, but would this be an English or an
> American billion? I've always been quite puzzled by this as according to
> the dictionary, a billion is 10 to the power of 12 (a million millions)
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
See below...

> unless you live in America or France where it is 10 to the power of 9 (a
> thousand millions).
> 
> Why does everyone use the US billion even if modern dictionaries say that 
                                               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Which dictionaries? Published where? "Defining" which variant of English?

A copy of "Collins English Dictionary, Updated Third Edition (1995) (an
extensive coverage of contemporary international and Australian English)"
here at work gives the following:

billion  n.
1. one thousand million: written as 1 000 000 000 or 10^9.
2. (formerly, in Britian) one million million (10^12).
3. (often pl.) any exceptionally large number.
[ ... some other less interesting bits ]

> it's 10 to the power of 12? I'm not trying to point out an error, this
> has simply been puzzling me for years.

My understanding of it is that simply Australia (and probably most of the
rest of the English-speaking world) had officially adopted the so-called
"US" meaning of billion rather than the English/British meaning quite a
while ago.

You'd have to consult a professional pedant to find out precisly when. :)

Pete.
-- 
http://akira.apana.org.au/~pete/

-- 
A debugged program is one for which you have not yet found the conditions
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