Decimal points & Milliards (was Re: Tables)

[Brian Forte]

David,


>Virtually everywhere in the world other than the US uses a comma to 

>indicate decimal fractions, correct?


Actually the full stop (aka period) as decimal point is standard 
throughout the anglophonic world (US, UK, Australia, Canada, South 
Africa, New Zealand, Kenya &c)


>Certainly in Spain, Italy, France, etc.


The comma as decimal point is standard through Western Europe. 
Stepping outside the industrialised West (and former colonies, such 
as Kenya) things get messy. Some places adopt European practise, some 
English.

Speaking for myself, I prefer the full stop as decimal point. And not 
just because of familiarity. It leaves the comma available to act as 
a visual aid for reading very large numbers (eg 1,000,000.00).

I know the current ISO standard for this (ISO 31) has spaces as the 
visual aid for large numbers but I *hate* overloading the space 
character in this fashion. The space was the first bit of punctuation 
to appear in Europe and it improved readability incredibly because it 
always separated words and it never did anything else. ISO 31 makes 
the space do double-duty, and the character can't do both jobs well.


>(as far as I know, the US is also the only country that doesn't know 

>what a  milliard is and mistakenly calls it a billion...)


It's hardly fair to call different large-number naming systems 
'mistakes'. Moreover, the system used in the US isn't even US in 
origin -- it's from France.

Developed by French mathematician, Nicolas Chuquet, and dating to the 
mid-1400s, the so-called Chuquet system combines a Latin numeric 
prefix with the illion (originally 'yllion' although that reflects 
mediaeval letter usage rather than pronuncuation).

The prefix is changed (creating a new descriptor for large numbers) 
when the larger number is a million times the previous descriptor.

Sometime during the 17th century, a variation on this scheme 
developed, also in France. It kept Chuquet's system of creating 
descriptors by adding Latin numeric prefixes to the 'illion' suffix. 
However it plumped for a new descriptor (ie changed the prefix) when 
the larger number was a thousand times the previous descriptor.

This variation on Chuquet's original system travelled to the 
fledgling US via France (a significant influence on the new nation, 
given France's military and economic aid during the War of Indepence) 
and has since become the standard in North America. Moreover, and 
despite it being commonly called the 'American system', this variant 
Chuquet nomenclature remains popular in France to this day.

Meanwhile, in the early 20th century, the British sought to bolster 
use of the original Chuquet system by assigning new names to the 
'10^3 times larger' values between each '10^6 times larger' value. 
Hence the milliard, billiard, trilliard and so on.

Curiously enough, although developed in Britain, I gather the 
Modified Chuquet System (as it's known) has never really caught on 
there. FWIW, when I was studying Mathematics here in Oz back in the 
1980s, we used the original Chuquet nomenclature with no sign of 
Modified terms like milliard.

That said, UK and wider Commonwealth English is adopting the variant 
Chuquet system (ie the 'billion = 10^9' usage), at least informally. 
And it's doing this primarily because the word is most commonly used 
by economists and economics journalists, a group inclined to take 
their lead from US editorial practise because they already take their 
lead from US economic practise [please note my restraint here: no 
snide editorial comment]. :->

FWIW, in general use, I avoid the Modified Chuquet system. I write 
mostly in English and, in my experience, the Modified Chuquet system 
is essentially unknown in the Anglophonic world.

Regards,

Brian Forte.
-- 
Brian Forte, <mailto:bforte at betweenborders.com>
Writer, editor, scripter, dangerous mind.