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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Betty Logan (talk | contribs) at 17:16, 8 February 2022 (→RfC about the structure of the Billion article: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Primary topic

What is the point of this? Is this going to be turned into a proper article? In any case, if this page is to exist, then it must surely be the primary topic for billion, and be renamed Billion, with the disambiguation page being renamed Billion (disambiguation). W. P. Uzer (talk) 06:52, 8 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Billion which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 10:59, 10 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

cfr.: now, not Talk:Billion but Talk:Billion (disambiguation)

cfr.: now, not Talk:Billion but Talk:Billion (disambiguation) (that talk section). --PLA y Grande Covián (talk) 17:37, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've quoted this, from Talk:Billion (disambiguation) to here. It was moved

– Topic of the article Billion (number) is primary. At least, it is almost certainly what a reader is looking for if typing "billion".

If it's primary topic, I don't understand an article with no interwiki links. I think the explanation is with the great/big diff. with:

I have to leave, now. Ciao! --PLA y Grande Covián (talk) 17:37, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Introduction in American English

The article says "American English adopted the short scale definition from the French" but in French we use the long scale, "billion" means 10¹² and we use the word milliard for 10⁹. Is this saying that billion comes from the French milliard, or is it saying that the french historically used the short scale billion and later changed? Joancharmant (talk) 08:40, 14 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

France originally used the long scale and then switched to the short scale. During this time the Americans adopted the French definition. The French later reverted to the long scale after World War 2. A full explanation is given in the "History" section. Betty Logan (talk) 11:33, 14 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
French wikipedia states that it was in partial use in France when the Americans adopted it, that it was not generalized yet. Trigenibinion (talk) 22:47, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Disruptive edits by Trigenibinion

There has been a sequence of edits by Trigenibinion, repeatedly tagging because he is not able to access the source, paraphrasing a source he claims he cannot read], and using foreign-language Wikipedias as a source (which violates WP:CIRCULAR).

I don't quite know what the issue is here, whether he is directly challenging the claim, if this is a language barrier issue or whether he is just being a disruptive presence. However, the edits are disruptive and making the article unstable. I strongly suggest that Trigenibinion comes to the talk page and attempt to articulate the problem. If he is directly challenging the source then he must produce an alternative reliable source to challenge the existing claim with. Betty Logan (talk) 22:49, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It is not me who has been disruptive
1. I requested clarification
2. The request was removed, and I noted the reference was behind paywall
3. The request was clarified
4. I improved the clarification according to French wikipedia
5. The improvement was removed because apparently it did not match the paywalled source
6. I added French wikipedia as a source for the improvement
7. The improvement was removed because French wikipedia was not considered authoritative
8. I come to discuss the issue to the talk page
9. I am accused of acting in bad faith Trigenibinion (talk) 22:56, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The problem here is that I do not know what you mean by "clarification"? Here is everything the OED say:

Etymology: < French billion, purposely formed in 16th cent. to denote the second power of a million adj. and n. (by substituting bi- comb. form for the initial letters), trillion and quadrillion being similarly formed to denote its 3rd and 4th powers. The name appears not to have been adopted in English before the end of the 17th cent.: see quot. from Locke. Subsequently the application of the word was changed by French arithmeticians, figures being divided in numeration into groups of threes, instead of sixes, so that French billion, trillion, denoted not the second and third powers of a million, but a thousand millions and a thousand thousand millions. In the 19th century, the U.S. adopted the French convention, but Britain retained the original and etymological use (to which France reverted in 1948). Since 1951 the U.S. value, a thousand millions, has been increasingly used in Britain, especially in technical writing and, more recently, in journalism; but the older sense ‘a million millions’ is still common.

However there is nothing really in there that is not already in the article. That is all there is but I honestly don't see what needs to be clarified. Betty Logan (talk) 23:22, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The French page claims that it was a minority using the short scale in France at the time it was imported to America (reformists). According to one of the references in the French page (authoritative), the definition was already in the official dictionary. The page then states that much later, when it was being taught in US schools, it was still in partial use in France and did not become generalized until later. That's why "the French used it" (at that the time of introduction to America) is misleading. Trigenibinion (talk) 23:42, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, now I appreciate what the issue is. However I am not conversant in French so I cannot consult the sources in the French article. Are you able to write up the history of the French usage here and copy the sources over? The sources have to be physically placed in this article for it to be verifiable. Betty Logan (talk) 02:37, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I will see if there are some accessible online sources about actual usage. There are some timeline differences between the English and French pages. But one can certainly say here is that by 1762 the short scale was the official definition in France.[1] Trigenibinion (talk) 03:09, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The 4th is indeed the first edition of that dictionary where the word appears. It was first published in 1694. The 9th edition is not finished.[2] Trigenibinion (talk) 05:43, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 4e, 5e, 6e et 8e éditions (1762, 1798, 1835, 1932-35) ; Émile Littré, Dictionnaire de la langue française (1972-77) : billion, milliard.
  2. ^ https://www.dictionnaire-academie.fr/
  • I am looking at these sources and it appears to me that a "billion" was defined as 1,000 million by the Dictionary of the French language at the time. Do we really need to clarify it beyond that? We can just write that first sentence as American English adopted the short scale definition from the French in the 19th century (when a "billion" was defined as a thousand million by the Dictionary of the French language). Ultimately we are not really interested in usage, but rather the origin of two separate definitions. Betty Logan (talk) 22:36, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe "as it was defined in the dictionary at the time". But it was imported to America before the 19th century, maybe before it appeared in the French dictionary. Trigenibinion (talk) 22:53, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
So maybe something like this: American English adopted the short scale definition from the French (at the time a "billion" was defined as a thousand million by the Dictionary of the French language). Betty Logan (talk) 23:16, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The first American book using the short scale was published in 1729, that is before it was adopted by the French dictionary. Trigenibinion (talk) 00:01, 18 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
So how exactly do you want this to be clarified? The French Dictionary defined "billion" using the short scale from the mid-18th century, so the definition must have been established prior to that. You say that the first American book to use the short scale was published in 1729. So that would indicate that the American billion was adopted at a similar time to when the short scale was becoming established in France. Ultimately anything we state has to be sourced. Betty Logan (talk) 06:32, 19 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it was indeed "some of whom". Here is the source: Isaac Greenwood. Trigenibinion (talk) 01:43, 20 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Milliard common in other European languages

The article states that "Milliard, another term for one thousand million, is extremely rare in English, but words similar to it are very common in other European languages." and then goes on to list several European languages, including Portuguese, and the apparent sources are two pages in Catalan, a very specific language that has many French words.

In Portuguese there isn't the equivalent to "milliard", we use only "milhares" for "thousands", "milhões" for "millions" and "biliões" (or "bilhões", mostly in Brazilian Portuguese) for "billions", with the meaning of a million millions.

To me, it looks like whoever wrote that sentence didn't have a real source for it and I suppose that information is also wrong for other languages listed.

In fact, during the 9th (1948) meeting of the General Conference on Weights and Measures, it was unanimously decided to propose the long scale for all European countries[1]. Portugal was one of the countries that followed the proposal and turned it into a national standard, NP 18:2006 [2].ArMaP (talk) 11:56, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/17314988/CGPM9.pdf/77fe0fa9-bda8-1620-831e-33646e446cd8
  2. ^ https://lojanormas.ipq.pt/product/np-18-2006/

No, there are not two current definitions to the word in English

There are sources in the lead sentence of the article that correctly assert that there is only one definition of the word "billion" in English. No sources have been provided by the person who reverted me of anything to the contrary. Red Slash 19:36, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not an English dictionary, it is an encyclopedia written in English. In theory you should be able to have the exact same article written in French or Russian, because an encyclopedia summarises concepts, and globally the concept of a "billion" has two definitions defined on two distinct scales. There are plenty of countries where words cognate to a "billion" have the meaning 1 x 10^12. If this were Wiktionary I would agree with you: if you were defining word use in the English language then you would expect it to reflect current/popular usage. You clearly accept this point because in your edit you start the lead "In the English language...". But we are not defining a word, we are defining a concept. The concept of the billion on the long scale has widespread use across the world, possibly more so than the short scale. If Wikipedia is to adopt a WP:WORLDVIEW then it shouldn't be reducing concepts to how they are are only understood in English speaking countries. Approximately 40% of the English Wikipedia's readership is located in countries where English is a second-language. A global readership should be able to access the information and the two definitions are much clearer in the long-standing bullet-point format. Betty Logan (talk) 22:25, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That is... emphatically not true. WP:USEENGLISH is a good resource. And no, we are not defining a concept at this page - 1,000,000,000 is the page that defines the concept. This is the rare article that is actually about the word. Red Slash 15:35, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That link is for naming conventions, and 1,000,000,000 defines 1,000,000,000 on one particular scale. There is WP:NOCONSENSUS to restructure the article so I am returning it to the WP:STATUSQUO. Betty Logan (talk) 15:58, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

RfC about the structure of the Billion article

There is currently a dispute about how this article should be structured. Here are the two competing options:

  1. Version 1, using bullet points to treat the definition on the two number scales equally and clearly.
  2. Version 2, prioritising the modern-day definition in English speaking countries.

Other relevant considerations:

Betty Logan (talk) 17:16, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

  • Version 1 (bullet point structure) While I fully accept the point that the long-scale usage is mostly historic in English-speaking countries (in an official capacity, less so among generations who left school before the 1970s), the simple fact is that globally the long-scale enjoys wide-spread usage. The concept of a "billion" has two definitions worldwide: as you can see at Long and short scale#Current usage there are many countries where a "billion" (or a word cognate to it) denotes 1 x 10^12. If Wikipedia were a dictionary then obviously the definition should reflect modern English-language usage. However, an encyclopedia should be concerned more with concepts, rather than etymology i.e. I think it is desirable for this article to be written in such a way that it would be a completely functional article if it were translated into French, for example. Another consideration is that approximately 40% of the readership for the English Wikipedia lies beyond native English speaking countries, and I don't think it is particularly helpful to readers by obfuscating the reality that a "billion" has two meanings. I think Version 1, with the bullet points, is more in the spirit of WP:WORLDVIEW. Betty Logan (talk) 17:16, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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