29-March-2008, 02:38 PM
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Senior Member
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Mount Dora, FL
Posts: 897
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_large_numbers
also from wiki-
Quote:
Milliard is a French-derived word meaning the number 1,000,000,000 (109; one thousand million; SI prefix giga). It is not used in American English and is rare in other forms of English - the preferred term being 'thousand million'. When South Africa adopted the metric system in 1971, "milliard" was recommended by the Metrication Board, but has often been ignored in practice. During the 20th century, the short scale "billion" superseded 'thousand million' to become the normal term in the most of the English-speaking world.
"Milliard", or a version thereof, is common to many languages other than English.
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