• chellomere@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    “the world”?

    If you came over to the other side of the pond, you’d find that most of Europe is still using milliard, billiard, trilliard etc.

    • CatLikeLemming@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      12 days ago

      I think that’s one thing that’s actually fine about the English language though. Constantly switching between something ending with “ion” to “iard” instead of just counting up doesn’t make much sense to me personally.

      Million (1A), Milliard (1B), Billion (2A), Billiard (2B) seems odd compared to Million (1), Billion (2), Trillion (3), Quadrillion (4)

      I suppose the upside is that you don’t have to learn as many prefixes, but it’ll take another few years of inflation and wealth centralization (at least with currencies like the Euro, Dollar, or Pound) until Quadrillion is relevant in the financial sector and Mathematicians generally use letters. I suppose it makes other natural sciences a tiny bit easier, but there it’s usually written in scientific notation anyways.