Learned something new today...

[Awoke]

Are you aware that when the British speak about money in terms of a "Billion" dollars or ounces, it is not the same as when the US speaks in terms of a "Billion".

My co-worker is a soccer fan and was talking about monetary deals for buying a soccer (football) team, and stated "A UK billion is not the same as a US billion".

Funny thing is that four of us all sat there and told him he was crazy, so sure enough he searched the web and proved to us that he is correct.

What the British call a "Billion", we in North America would call a "Trillion".
The UK Billion is a 1 followed by 12 zeros
The US billion is a 1 followed by 9 zeros

Amazing. It puts questions in the air regarding the current GATA/Douglas/Mcguire/Kingsworldnews exposure of the London and USA Metals ponzi-scheme, considering when they throw their numbers around, they are not the same....

??? :o ??? :o ???

[jedemdasseine]

Billiards? Isn't that a game?

lol.

Milliards, billiards, and the long and short scales.....

When speaking to international audiences, most Britons use "million" as Americans do.

[TheNocturnalEgyptian]

Most of the time I am open-minded but that's just weird

[vacuum]

So is this terminology used the vast majority of the time over there? So any UK author or news program talking to a UK audience will use it in this way? Bizarre

[uranian]

strictly speaking, that's true, but mostly people in the UK mean the same as you guys over the pond, i.e. 1,000,000,000 is a billion.

[Apparition]

I noticed that a while ago as well.

I'm also still trying to learn everything abou the long & short scale system:

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

[Awoke]

I personally find it confusing, and I can see major implications with language-games by the elite, when they address the public on monetary issues.

For example, if they ssy "We are aquiring new income via taxes in the area of 20 billion", it could actually mean 20 trillion.....

I know that is a crude example, but it makes my point.

It also opens up a bunch of possible "legal-terminology-loopholes" in british imperial countries like Canada or Australia, when they address teh public on monetary issues.
I don't know. Maybe not, but I find it confusing.