Having lived and worked in both the UK and Ireland, I dare say that
IMHO the use of "milliard" is now (thank the Gods) relatively scarce
and diminishing in (probably any form of) English. It's an entirely
different story however when it comes to other languages -- e.g. in
German, "Milliarde" is the ''only'' correct way.
(NB: use a non-proportional font here)
So common English usage: compares to German usage:
million Million
billion Milliarde
trillion Billion
quadrillion Billiarde
quintillion Trillion
etc. etc.
IMO the "milliard" convention is absolute rubbish, because it
effectively breaks the decimal system and I'm glad it's in decline in
the English speaking world. I wish the same were true for its use in
other languages as well.
</2eurocents>
On 6 Oct 2004, at 11:55, Craig Franklin wrote:
Scríobh David Friedland:
would appear to an en-gb reader as
a plan was formulated by which Germany was to pay 226 milliard gold
marks
and to an en-us reader as
a plan was formulated by which Germany was to pay 226 billion gold
marks
This is clumsy, but manageable, when there's only en-us and en-gb to
worry
about. Unfortunately, there are more than two dialects of English.
For instance, in Australian English, the word "milliard" is unknown (I
had
to go and look it up to see what you were on about). The sentence in
en-au
would be "a plan was formulated by which Germany was to pay 226
thousand
million gold marks." (a thousand million being a 1 followed by nine
zeroes).
I've no idea what sort of dialectical differences exist in other
English
dialects, but I assume that they're there also.
I mean, it probably could be done, but coming up with alternatives for
en-us, en-gb, en-au, en-ie, en-za, etc etc, would just be a massive
pain,
and lets be honest, who has time for that sort of work. The system
works
fine as it is now (although putting the number in decimal form
afterwards
would probably help, and is my policy when there might be confusion
caused).
- Craig Franklin
-------------------
Craig Franklin
PO Box 764
Ashgrove, Q, 4060
Australia
http://www.halo-17.net - Australia's Favourite Source of Indie Music,
Art,
and Culture.
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