On Wed, 13 Sep 2000, David Balazic wrote:
> Jaroslav Lukesh wrote:
> > | The other one is translating american billions (10^9) and trillions
> > | (10^12) to Billionen (10^12) and Trillionen (10^18). You got
> > fantastic
> > | gross national product for the U.S.A. with values in the range of
> > 10^10
> > | US $ per citicen.
> >
> > Not only in germany, but in Czech too :)
>
> But it's the americans fault ! :-)
> For using those non-standard units !
We *had* the same problem too. In English billions are 10^12 (or a million
million) and trillions are 10^18. In American English billions are 10^9
and trillions are 10^12. However, with so much exposure to American
English and the realisation that 5 billion is quicker to say than 5
thousand million we in the UK have adopted the American English way of
doing things in common speech. English (not American) Dictionaries will
tell you otherwise though.
Cheers.
Mark Powell - UNIX System Administrator - The University of Salford
Academic Information Services, Clifford Whitworth Building,
Salford University, Manchester, M5 4WT, UK.
Tel: +44 161 295 5936 Fax: +44 161 295 5888 www.pgp.com for PGP key
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