Billion vs. Milliarde?

[Ara Pacis]

I wrote "a thousand million" and "a million million" so as to be understood by users of both scales, but I also wrote that I favour the short scale, where the former is called "a billion" and the latter is called "a trillion".

No, I meant what group of people? The americans I'm familiar with don't say "a thousand millions" or "a million million".

In written format, scientific notation is certainly sufficient — and most scientific/technical discussion is done in written format. Anyway, scientific notation can be read aloud, too.

Use it in a sentence, phonetically.

Why would it contain an extra zero?

It wouldn't, unless you decoded it improperly.

I don't see how using "billion" instead of "giga" or instead of scientific notation would alleviate your confusion.

Certain items tend to be counted in certain manners leading to conventions.

[HenrikOlsen]

Use it in a sentence, phonetically.

Three times ten to the twelfth hobnailed boots will make a rather large pile.
Owing someone one point three times ten to the twelfth Euros is apparently considered a manageable debt.

Not sure why you want it phonetically, that would require you to first defined which dialect you want.

[Ara Pacis]

Three times ten to the twelfth hobnailed boots will make a rather large pile.
Owing someone one point three times ten to the twelfth Euros is apparently considered a manageable debt.

Not sure why you want it phonetically, that would require you to first defined which dialect you want.

First of all, it takes more syllables. Second of all, I was waiting for someone to write "ten-ee-two" or some such.

[Perikles]

Three times ten to the twelfth hobnailed boots will make a rather large pile.

Actually, that would not even make 4 boots in my convention. No doubt you mean twelfth power, but it also means 'ten to the power of one twelfth'. I have always used 'ten to the power twelve' to avoid the ambiguity. Am I in a minority here?

[HenrikOlsen]

Actually, that would not even make 4 boots in my convention. No doubt you mean twelfth power, but it also means 'ten to the power of one twelfth'. I have always used 'ten to the power twelve' to avoid the ambiguity. Am I in a minority here?

Knowing linguistics is not a good replacement for learning the language.

In real use it's not going to be interpreted as 10^(1/12) because that would be a meaningless interpretation in any context where that way of phrasing it is likely to be used.
It's a silly interpretation based on linguistic rules rather than on actual language knowledge.

[Perikles]

It's a silly interpretation based on linguistic rules rather than on actual language knowledge.

That's the way I learned it at school, when dealing with powers of all numbers, not just 10, and generally it makes total sense because it is unambiguous. It's just stayed with me.

[HenrikOlsen]

Norwegians and Sweedes and i believe some Danes(correct me if I'm wrong on this would you dear southern neighbours) say it with the d sound at the end of milliard.
altho in Norwegian it is pronounced more like Milli-ard. with the ar in ard sounding a lot like ar of argh and ending in a straight d sound.

In Danish it's milli-ard with the -ard pronounced like in "hard". No "e".

[Gillianren]

Actually, that would not even make 4 boots in my convention. No doubt you mean twelfth power, but it also means 'ten to the power of one twelfth'. I have always used 'ten to the power twelve' to avoid the ambiguity. Am I in a minority here?

I think so, yes. I'll admit it's been a long time since I have discussed scientific notation out loud with any degree of regularity, but I seem to recall using "twelfth," not "power of twelve."

[Ara Pacis]

Knowing linguistics is not a good replacement for learning the language.

In real use it's not going to be interpreted as 10^(1/12) because that would be a meaningless interpretation in any context where that way of phrasing it is likely to be used.
It's a silly interpretation based on linguistic rules rather than on actual language knowledge.

I think we added "power" in that, so that it was "raised to the twelfth power".

[Disinfo Agent]

No, I meant what group of people? The americans I'm familiar with don't say "a thousand millions" or "a million million".

I meant that people commonly speak about such quantities, not that they use those names.

[John Mendenhall]

It was many years ago that Uncle Scrooge McDuck was known to have 10 skydillion umpty-bajillion dollars in his money bin.

Of course, that was before Microsoft. Bill Gates may have more by now.