Long scale is the English translation of the French term "échelle longue", which designates a system of numeric names in which the word billion means a million millions. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The word billion, and its equivalents in other languages, refer to one of two different numbers. ...

Short scale is the English translation of the French term "échelle courte", which designates a system of numeric names in which the word billion means only a thousand millions. The word billion, and its equivalents in other languages, refer to one of two different numbers. ...

For most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Great Britain uniformly used the long scale, while the United States of America used the short scale, so the two systems were often (and accurately) referred to as "British" and "American" usage, respectively. However, by the end of the 20th century most English-speaking countries had almost universally adopted the short scale, so the phrases "British usage" and "American usage" are now confusing.

Both systems have been used in France at various times in history, but French has now settled with the long scale, in common with most other European languages. World map showing location of Europe A satellite composite image of Europe Europe is geologically and geographically a peninsula, forming the westernmost part of Eurasia. ...

Comparison

For a more extensive table, see names of large numbers. The standard dictionary numbers Throughout this article, exponential or scientific notation is used. ...

History

• 1475: Jehan Adam recorded the words "bymillion" and "trimillion" (for 10¹² and 10¹⁸)
• 1484: French mathematician Nicolas Chuquet, in his article "Triparty en la science de nombres"[1] (http://www.miakinen.net/vrac/nombres#lettres_zillions), used the words byllion, tryllion, quadrillion, quyllion, sixlion, septyllion, ottyllion, and nonyllion to refer to 10¹², 10¹⁸, etc.; Chuquet's work had little direct influence because it was not published until the 1870s, but most of it was copied (without attribution) by Estienne de la Roche for a portion of his 1520 book, Larismetique
• ca. 1550: Pelletier retained Chuquet's long scale but suggested the name milliard in place of "thousand million". This word was widely adopted in England, Germany, and the rest of Europe.
• Early 17th century: In France and Italy, a minority of scientists changed the sense of "billion" to 10⁹
• Middle 18th Century: The reformed meaning of the term "billion" was brought to the British American colonies
• Early 19th century: France partially converted to the short scale, and was followed by the USA, which began teaching it in schools.
• 1926: H. W. Fowler's Modern English Usage noted "It should be remembered that this word ["billion"] does not mean in American use (which follows the French) what it means in British. For to us it means the second power of a million, i.e. a million millions (1,000,000,000,000); for Americans it means a thousand multiplied by itself twice, or a thousand millions (1,000,000,000), what we call a milliard. Since billion in our sense is useless except to astronomers, it is a pity that we do not conform."
• 1948: France's International Conférence des Poids et des Mesures proposed to return to the long scale.
• 1961: The Journal Officiel (the French official gazette) confirmed the official French usage of the long scale (Décret 61-501 (http://www.ensmp.net/pdf/1961/decr-61-0501.pdf), page 14, note 3A).
• 1974: British prime minister Harold Wilson abandoned the long scale meaning of billion (10¹²), explaining before the House of Commons that "billion" from now on in British government statistics has the short scale meaning of 10⁹, in common with the U.S.
• 1994: The Italian government officially confirmed the long scale use of the term "billion" (Direttiva CE 1994 n. 55 (http://www.frareg.com/news/legislazione/ambiente/direttiva_1994_55_CE.pdf), page 12).
• End of 20th century: As a result of US influence, the short scale usage came to be used officially by all English-speaking countries.

Events August 29 - Treaty of Picquigny ends a brief war between France and England. ... Events July 6 - Portuguese sea captain Diogo Cão finds the mouth of Congo River December 5 - Pope Innocent VIII gives the inquisition a mission to hunt heretics and witches in Germany with the lead of Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger First cuirassier units (kyrissers) formed in Austria Births January... Nicolas Chuquet (born 1445 (some sources say c. ... Events and Trends Technology Invention of the telephone (1876) and phonograph (1877) WTF Science Ludwig Boltzmanns statistical definition of thermodynamic entropy War, peace and politics Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) results in the collapse of the Second French Empire and in the formation of both the French Third Republic... Events January 18 - King Christian II of Denmark and Norway defeats the Swedes at Lake Asunde. ... Events February 7 - Julius III becomes Pope. ... Jacques Pelletier du Mans (1517–1582) was a French mathematician. ... (16th century - 17th century - 18th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 17th century was that century which lasted from 1601-1700. ... (17th century - 18th century - 19th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701 through 1800. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1926 was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... The word billion, and its equivalents in other languages, refer to one of two different numbers. ... 1948 is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1961 (As MAD Magazine pointed out on its first cover for the year) was the first upside-down year—i. ... 1974 is a common year starting on Tuesday (click on link for calendar). ... 1994 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the...

Current usage

Short scale countries

The following countries use the short scale:

• Most English-speaking countries — the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, etc.
• Brazil, which despite speaking a variant of Portuguese, uses 10⁹ = bilhão, 10¹² = trilhão, etc.
• Puerto Rico, a Spanish-speaking US territory uses 10⁹ = billón, 10¹² = trillón, etc.
• Russia and Turkey, where 10⁹ is commonly called "milliard" but the short scale is used for 10¹² and above .
• Greece, which uses 10⁹ = disekatommyrio ("bi-hundred-myriad"), 10¹² = trisekatommyrio, ("tri-hundred-myriad"), etc

Wikiquote has quotations relating to: United States Wikinews has news related to this article: United States United States government Official website of the United States government - Gateway to governmental sites White House - Official site of the US President Senate. ... Myriad is a classical Greek name for the number 104 = 10 000, or a group of 10 000 people, etc. ...

Long scale countries

All other countries using French-derived numbering systems use the long scale. Examples:

French, Danish and Norwegian milliard, Dutch miljard, German Milliarde, Hebrew milliard, Spanish millardo, Italian miliardo, Polish miliard, Swedish miljard or milliard, Finnish miljardi, Latvian miljards, Czech miliarda, Romanian miliard and Serbian milijarda all equal 10⁹. The Modern Hebrew language is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. ...

Spanish billón, Portuguese (Portugal) bilião, French billion, German Billion, Danish billion, Swedish billion or biljon, Dutch biljoen, Slovenian bilijon, Finnish biljoona, Polish and Serbian bilion all equal 10¹².

In Italian, the word bilione can mean both 10⁹ and 10¹², trilione both 10¹² and (rarer) 10¹⁸ and so on. Therefore, in order to avoid ambiguity, hardly anybody uses them. Forms such as mille miliardi (a thousand milliards) for 10¹², un milione di miliardi for 10¹⁵, un miliardo di miliardi for 10¹⁸, mille miliardi di miliardi for 10²¹ are much more common.

UK usage

The term "milliard" is now obsolete in British English, and "billion" has meant nothing except 10⁹ in all published writing for many years now. Both the UK government and the BBC use the short scale exclusively in all contexts. Anyone deliberately using billion to mean 10¹² in British English is likely to be misunderstood. The United Kingdom is a unitary state and a democratic constitutional monarchy. ... The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was formed in 1927 by means of a royal charter from the Crown. ...

However, the long scale understanding still persists, and not only among older people. As numbers this large are rare in everyday life, a significant proportion of lay readers will interpret "billion" as 10¹² ("a million million"), even if they are young enough to have been taught otherwise at school. Following this incorrect pattern, some will even extrapolate "trillion" as a (long scale) billion billions (10²⁴) rather than the actual long scale 10¹⁸ or the short scale 10¹².

For the above reasons, avoiding the words "billion", "trillion" etc. may be advisable when writing for the general public.

Australian usage

In Australia, some official documents use the term thousand million for 10⁹ in cases where two amounts are being compared using a common unit of one 'million'. The current recommendation by AusInfo, the Government printing service, and the legal definition, is the short scale (AusInfo, Style Guide for Authors, Editors and Printers). Education, media outlets, and literature all use the short scale in line with other English speaking countries.

Alternative approaches

Unambiguous ways of identifying large numbers include:

• Combinations of the unambiguous word 'million', for example: 10⁹ = "one thousand million"; 10¹² = "one million million". This becomes rather unwieldy for numbers above 10¹².

• Combination of numbers with more than 3 digits with million, as in 15,300 million.

• Scientific notation, including its engineering notation variant, for example 10⁹, 10¹². This is the most common practice among scientists and mathematicians, and is both unambiguous and convenient.

• SI prefixes, for example, giga for 10⁹ and tera for 10¹². One problem is that in computing contexts the prefix may be interpreted as the binary prefix with the same name but a somewhat different value.