Why do Europeans say 1000 million instead of 1 billion?

[Alex_is_Axel]

Ive never heard anyone say 1000million in the UK

Where did you hear such a thing?

[what]

The UK has pretty much switched over the American system now since it makes a lot more sense. Saying '1000 million' and calling an American trillion a 'billion' is quite old-fashioned now.

[dfuk]

Was tought that 1,000,000,000,000 was a billion untill about 1978 when we had new physics text book delivered. These were printed in America and 1,000,000,000 was a billion. As values had to be stated in numeric form it made no difference.

dfuk

Sent from blackberry

[yxz]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_shor...ales#Comparison

[M_Lyons10]

Interesting thread. I never knew any of this. It's a lot of complexity for complexities sake... It sounds from that article that the American terminology is catching on mostly? But both the American and British terminology was created by the French? Then why would they call it American and British? ROFL Sneaky Frenchmen... :p

[Joel]

No, that's when it joined the EU. England/the UK has always been part of Europe.

Then why is there always a distinction made between them?

[lee31]

Then why is there always a distinction made between them?

Because most people outside the UK call Continential Europe just Europe for some dumb reason.

[ApostolicFire]

Reminds me of this video: Japanese Show counting to 100

[what]

Then why is there always a distinction made between them?

Because the UK isn't attached to the rest of continental Europe, and our way of life is quite different, even down to the kind of electrical outlets we use. You really don't want to look too deep into such trivial things.

[Golferjim]

Why do Americans say 1 billion instead of 1000 million?

:p

Lol!

well played :laugh:

Im English and we just say 'Billion'

[limok]

'Cause we don't play with monoply money our money is worth

[tiagosilva29]

Just say such high numbers in scientific notation.

[xtrabit racing]

in Turkey, its "milyar"

[nully]

Desciptive words for an actual numbers could be dangerous! I will have to be careful when I become a Billionaire.... This reminds of when they built the hubble telescope lens incorrectly getting imperial and metric mixed up they only worked it out when the thing was in space.. now thats dumb.

[HawkMan]

Desciptive words for an actual numbers could be dangerous! I will have to be careful when I become a Billionaire.... This reminds of when they built the hubble telescope lens incorrectly getting imperial and metric mixed up they only worked it out when the thing was in space.. now thats dumb.

you're confusing the hubble error with the mars lander error. Hubble's issues wasn't related to metric/imperial conversions, but broken equipment and poor quality control.

[_neutrino Veteran]

In German it's called 'Milliarde'.

Yeah I was going to say the same thing Im german as well :p

[-Vivicidal-]

Then why is there always a distinction made between them?

EU - political

Europe/Continental Europe - geographical

There is a distinction because they relate to different countries.

[Joel]

EU - political

Europe/Continental Europe - geographical

There is a distinction because they relate to different countries.

All of Europe is different countries. Why distinguish the UK from the rest?

[tiagosilva29]

Why distinguish the UK from the rest?

The UK always had beef with us. Pun intended.

[neufuse Veteran]

I don't know why each grouping cant just have its own name like we do use in america.....

0 - ones

10 - tens

100 - hundreds

1 000 - thousands

10 000 - ten thousands

100 000 - hundred thousands

1 000 000 - millions

10 000 000 - ten millions

100 000 000 - hundred millions

1 000 000 000 - billions

10 000 000 000 - ten billions

100 000 000 000 - hundred bllions

1 000 000 000 000 - trillions

[epraes]

Wow, seems in Spain we're different to everybody else!!!

Here, one billion is one million million.

We do say "a thousand million" (mil millones)

And the word "millar" (which looks like your "milliard") means "a thousand": un millar = mil = 1000

[Pupik]

I don't know why each grouping cant just have its own name like we do use in america.....

Same could be asked about the Americans and the metric system; why not use it, like the rest of the world?

[+John. Subscriber¹]

UK here, I've never heard anyone else say 1000 million. Always billion.

[Orange]

Never heard of any one that i know that says "1000 million" Always been 1 billion!

[powerade01]

Correct. An European billion is the same as an American trillion.

a billion is a billion and a trillion is a trillion.

Unless of course you are talking about the topic at hand.