this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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[–] gealb@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago (3 children)

In Hungary we don't even have a separate name for 11 and 12, just 10 + 1 and 10 + 2. But at least we messed up the billions, it's called 'milliárd' and the trillion is 'billió'. We were so close to making it perfect.

[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

*sigh* That's normal across Europe, including the UK until recently.


Legend

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales

Anyway, don’t tell me Hungarian is sensible when second (unit of time) is “másodperc”.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

But at least we messed up the billions

No, you folks did it correctly. It's everyone else who messed up: How big is a billion?

1 million squared is a billion. 1 million cubed is a trillion. (1 million)^4 is a quadrillion. And so forth with pent-, sex-, sept-, oct-, etc. Milliard, billiard, trilliard, etc. slot in between the powers of one million.

[–] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 2 points 1 year ago

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How big is a billion?

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[–] gealb@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

TIL, then our number system is perfect!! :D

[–] shaked_coffee@feddit.it 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Italy joins the club of messing up the billions 🙌

For us a billion is "un miliardo" and a trillion is "un bilione"

[–] Lemmchen@feddit.de 37 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think that's fairly normal in Europe, isn't it? In Germany we have Million, Milliarde, Billion, Billiarde instead of million, billion, trillion and so on, too.

[–] Gamey@feddit.de 5 points 1 year ago

Yea, that shit confused me so damn many times before!

[–] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 year ago

I might be remembering this incorrectly, but a billion in Europe used to be a million million, and we would count in thousands of millions first, as opposed to a billion now being a thousand million.

I can't remember whether a trillion was a million (old) billion, or whether it was a billion billion.