RE: Billions across the world in English

Le sam, 01 jui 2000, Olav Lavell a =E9crit :
> Hugh Blair wrote
>=20
> > Very interesting thread!  I'd like to recap and get consensus
> > if possible.
> > Would others from around the world jump in and comment?  Vote your si=
de
> > of the table:
> >
> >      US                                Netherlands
> >      UK                                ? Europe ?
> >    Canada                               ? Asia ?
> >    French                              ? Orient ?
> > (The Americas?)
> > __________________________________________________
> > Thousand    1,000                       Thousand
> > Million     1,000,000                   Million
> > Billion     1,000,000,000               Milliard
> > Trillion    1,000,000,000,000           Billion
> > Quadrillion 1,000,000,000,000,000       Billiard
> > Quintillion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000   ?
>=20
> Here's my vote. I'm definitely on the *right* side (of above table). Th=
e
> Netherlands need not at all be mentioned as a seperate party, nor does
> Germany as I have seen someone mention, because throughout the world
> *except* the English speaking countries a milliard is *always* understo=
od
> as 1,000,000,000. Also in France, they should most definitely *not* be =
on
> the left (I do not know about the French speaking Canada). The same goe=
s
> for the Spanish and Portuguese speaking Americas.

=09You are quite right Olav, here in Canada milliard in french does mean =
1,000,000,000.  It's also the case in France.  And it goes million, milli=
ard, billion, billiard, trillion, trilliard etc...  I don't think there's=
 any real use to go further then billion though.

=09Michel C=F4t=E9

HTML: hwg-basics mailing list archives, maintained by Webmasters @ IWA