#and also bc this is the six thousandth ‘um actually…’ comment on this post | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hamletthedane · 2 years ago

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“Billion” in standard scientific, legal, and economic English means 1,000,000,000 (one thousand million). That is the number this post uses, as it’s the uniform definition in English-speaking countries.

However, some British folks (or really, English folks) still use “billion” to mean 1,000,000,000,000 (one million million). This is not the modern meaning of “billion” - the official UK government definition is, like the rest of the world, “one thousand million.” However, it does explain @weergang’s comment and the many other confused Brits in the notes of this post! :)

There’s a lot of excellent examples of the difference between a million and a billion, but here’s my new personal favorite from a conversation I had today:

A million minutes ago was April 2021, the height of the COVID pandemic.

A billion minutes ago was November 121 CE, the height of the Roman Empire.

#only responding bc it made me sad to read you think you’re gullible #and also bc this is the six thousandth ‘um actually…’ comment on this post #one of those rare times that even the Americans are looking at a country like ‘come on switch to the scientific-metric system already’ lmao #(i say this with all affection all regional word usages are valid #but umm actually… The Queen’s English Is Not A Universal Experience)#what’s funny is that the English don’t seem to realize this which is very interesting??#shut up e

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