Talk:Long and short scales/Archive 3 Australia

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Thousand Million

I'm an Australian, and I work for one of the state governments, and our preferred official way of describing 1,000,000,000 is neither "milliard" nor "billion", but "thousand million". This appears to be long form, but Australia is listed as short form. I cannot vouch for any other states, but if the long form has official status in at least one state, then it can hardly be said that Australia is a short-form country. Therefore, I'm going to edit the article to reflect this.

This whole topic is contentious enough that it would really be best if you tried to find some sources to cite. Your comment made me realize that there are actually two different issues here. Let me ask this question carefully. I am not challenging the truth of your statement, I'm just saying as long as you've raised the issue, could you take it a little farther?
1) Is it possible to reference your statement that it's the preferred official way in your state? I'm sure there's some kind of style manual, maybe even online. Also, why not mention which state?
2) It is perfectly possible to imagine a situation in which "billion" means 109 yet the preferred word for 109 is "thousand million." Could that be the case for Australia? (There is a very parallel situation with the word "milliard" in English generally: it means 109 whenever it is used, but is almost never the word which people choose to use).
3) Are there "Australian" dictionaries or usage guides, that is dictionaries of the English language that are produced by Australians and reflect Australian usage? Some dictionaries in the U.S. are actually entitled "Dictionary of the American language." Could you look up "billion" in one of them and quote it?
I went to www.australia.gov.au and searched for billion. There were 10 hits - all referred to the short scale definition of billion and were related to financial matters. I searched for milliard or thousand million and received no hits. As a result, I reckon that (central) Australian government policy is to use billion - which is short scale, as per the original article before your changes. Ian Cairns 13:06, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I went to my state government website, and did a search. Here is a listing: [1]. Plenty of results for "thousand million". The only other evidence that I can submit to you is that I work in the finance area of one of the departments, and "thousand million" is the commonly understood term, and has been since before I got there. Lankiveil 07:59, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC).
The use of "thousand million" is hardly peculiar to Australia. I have often seen it in British writing, and in American writing among the relatively few Americans cognizant of the fact that there is or ever was a problem.
To me it is also clear that this term includes the frequent use of numbers such as 56,000 million and 132,140 million and the like, in preference to any "billion" or "milliard" or the like.
While the term "thousand billion" is evidence pointing towards long scale usage, the term "thousand million" is not.
The use of "million million" and "thousand million million" are clear evidence of an ambguity which is being avoided. If memory serves me right, one place where a much longer string can be found is in Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time.
Even if within a localized geographical reason an ambiguity has largely been resolved and usage of "billion" and the like is fairly uniform, the use of these avoidance schemes, once established, are likely to persist as long as there is any ambiguity anywhere in the world (including not just in the English language, but other languages as well). And they'd likely continue even beyond that time.
I looked once for evidence of British use of "billion" to mean 109 in any context other than the monetary context, and could find almost nothing. It is possible that billion as 1012 remains the more common form in other contexts even if the Exchequer has changed the definition it uses for monetary numbers.
Gene Nygaard 11:33, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Here's an example from the BBC: This Dynamic Earth "To our eyes the surface of the Earth may seem like a rather static and stable place. However this is not the case. If we were to speed up time so that a billion years passed by in an hour, we would be amazed to see an undulating surface..." etc.
Here's one from the Guardian: Population boom set to stabilise at 9bn by 2300 "...If fertility levels continue to fall, global population will stabilise three centuries from now at around 9 billion - a far less alarming figure than many have been predicting."
I can't judge the predominance of usage, but short-scale billion is being used outside of financial contexts. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:23, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I have just watched / rewatched the BBC's "Blue Planet" on "Coastal Waters. I will have to paraprase, but Attenborough very clearly states that: "Every evening as the sun goes down, the greatest movement of life on earth takes place when a thousand million tons (?tonnes?) of phytoplankton rise to the surface to feed.". A clear and unambiguous use of 10x9, to clearly mean something other than the now unclear term "billion".

Australian usage

Some official recognition is given in Australia to a variant of the long form system which uses thousand million to mean 109 and billion to mean 1012.

I'd be happier if someone could cite a reference supporting the bold text, otherwise this is a highly misleading statement. In government documents, the popular media and as taught in schools in Australia, 1 billion is 109 in all cases. --kudz75 06:29, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • Lankiveil gave this one, above, an indication that the Queensland government frequently uses the phrase. I can't judge just how prevalent it really is in Australia. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:51, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. Looking at the page, thousand million seems to be used when comparing amounts with the common measuring unit in millions, it doesn't seem to say anywhere that a billion is 1012. Amending the article accordingly. --kudz75 01:11, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I tweaked the wording. I changed "short form" to "short scale" to match the rest of the article. I just left out any mention of "thousand million" being a long scale usage, because a thousand million is unambiguously 109 and therefore (this makes my head hurt!) is not unambiguously long scale. So instead of saying "In Australia, some official documents use the long-scale term thousand million" or "In Australia, some official documents appear to use the long-scale term thousand million" I decided to weasel and just say "In Australia, some official documents use the term thousand million". In the next clause, instead of saying "only in cases where two amounts are being compared using a common unit of one million", I thought it was best to weasel by leaving out the word "only" since I don't think anyone knows this to be a fact.
It seems as if it would be sensible and tasteful to use "thousand million" when naming and comparing quantities above and below the neighborhood of 109 but we shouldn't say it's the rule unless someone finds a style guide that codifies this. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:20, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm in my forties. I was taught in (Victorian) primary school that 1,000,000,000 was a thousand million and a million million was a billion. Sometime in the last couple of decades that has changed in Australia. I assumed it was the result of innumerate journalists slavishly following the US practice, as they so often do. If someone can document this change better than my anecdotal story, should it not be included? Avalon 03:09, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I have *NEVER* heard anywhere by anyone in Australia that they use the short scale. Australia ALWAYS uses the long scale. It is taught in all schools without exception. The short scale is only used in reference to USA and to economics. It is only through Australia's increasingly strong alliance with America (especially since 1991) that it has ever even once been taught in an Australian school. Even today, the vast majority of Australian schools teach long scale. In fact, name one school that teaches short scale in an Australian school. I have never heard of a single one. Is there a source that suggests that they do? Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 14:39, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


I have no experience with editing Wikipedia so forgive me if dumping this info here is a horrendous crime. Zordrac really seems to have bee in his bonnet about short scale never being used in Australia. This may be true in some academic circles, but it certainly is in use elsewhere. Some references for Australian government (state and federal) usage of the term billion to mean 10^9:

Sustainable Energy Authority Victoria – VIC http://www.seav.sustainability.vic.gov.au/glossary.asp

The Long Paddock website – QLD http://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/ClimateChanges/slides/glossary.html

National Pollutant Inventory – Federal http://www.npi.gov.au/epg/npi/contextual_info/glossary.html

Energy Safety – WA http://www.energysafety.wa.gov.au/energysafety/old_stuff/glossary.html

Queensland Treasury Corporation – QLD http://www.qtc.qld.gov.au/internet/pub.nsf/content/Glossary

Environmental Protection Agency – NSW http://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/ieo/Murrumbidgee/report-06.htm


A site that calls a thousand million a billion:

RBA – Federal http://search.rba.gov.au/query.html?library=rba&qt=%22thousand+million%22&nh=10&rf=0&col=rba&ht=0&qp=&qs=&qc=&pw=100%25&ws=1&la=en&qm=0&st=1&oq=&rq=0&si=0


Some sites that use both billion and multiples of millions to try to avoid the issue (I talked to people there and that's what they said!):

ABS – Federal http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/D3310114.nsf/home/home

CSIRO – Federal http://www.csiro.au/csiro/search/CSIROau.html?query=%22thousand+million%22&Go=Go&area=all


The one place where the long scale was found:

SafetyLine Institute – WA http://www.safetyline.wa.gov.au/institute/level2/course15/lecture80/l80_10.asp


There are stacks more businesses in Australia that use short scale too. I'd think it's fair to say that short scale is winning the race in Australia, for better or worse. Give me time and I'll probably find not only some schools, but some universities that use short scale too. Oops, here's one that just came in from an email query: Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology.

144.137.183.101 01:59, 23 February 2006 (UTC)


I'm in my 40's and was taught (in a Victorian high school 1971 -1976) that long scale was British and short scale was American, but never given an 'Austalian' definition. The term Billion was only used to describe Billionaires, and they were understood to be American. But what interest me is that I was always taught 'after Billion, the two scales were the same' perhaps meaning that there was only one definition of a Trillion, the 'short' definition, but that was never very clear. If we seldom used Billion, we never used Trillion in any context where it needed a definite meaning other than Trillionaire. Note that in general, Vic seemed to stick closer to Fowler than did NSW and Q'ld. -ize spellings were common until the Oxford dictionary was replaced with the Macquarie (NSW), and issues like this only became widely contentious when computers (and FidoNet) gave more people the opportunity to spell and enumerate in public.

When the change for Australia

The article says 1974 for when "all English speaking countries" changed to short scale. I was born in 1975. I live in an English speaking country. I have never in my entire life met anyone who uses the short scale. It was not taught at my school. It has not been taught in any other school that I went to (I went to 11 schools in 4 states). The only time that I encountered it was in advanced mathematics in 3rd year university when we were learning about history of mathematics, and also in economics. That's it. Most people I knew thought that Americans were incredibly rich, since they were billionaires - which means having a million million dollars. And that was the case certainly until 1990. It was unheard of before then, other than on American TV shows etc. 1990 was the first mention of the short scale in Australia as anything other than academic interest.

From what I can gather, the change from Australia being wholly long scale to being partially short scale (only with reference to Economics and in certain legal cases) is due to the following reasons:

When it became official for Australia to use short scale in discussing finances was somewhere in that time period. I believe it was around 1997 or 1998. It was used with legal cases sometime after that, I believe 1999.

Australia does not use short scale for mathematics or in general use, and it is not taught in schools. If anyone wishes to suggest that it is, then please provide sources. I note that there is not a single source in this article.

Also, the assertion that "all English speaking countries" use short scale is ludicruous. Traditionally, all British English countries (i.e. every English speaking country aside from USA and Canada) used the long scale. Therefore, it should more correctly state that short scale is used by USA and Canada as the only 2 English speaking countries. From what I can gather, New Zealand and UK are in the same boat as Australia, although they may have changed to partial use of the short scale at different times and for different reasons.

I have not seen a single school in Australia where mathematically "billion" is taught to mean "a thousand million". I have seen the mathematics curriculum for 10 high schools in the past 2 years, and not a single one teaches short scale for mathematics. Indeed, I have never seen short scale taught in a single school in Australia, other than for economics. It is taught as an alternative, yes, but as an American alternative.

I believe that it might be more accurate to describe Australia, UK and New Zealand as either "long scale" countries or else as "mixed" countries, where they use long scale for some things (e.g. counting, mathematics) and short scale for a handful of other things (e.g. finances). To suggest that short scale is in widespread use is somewhat silly. Especially without sources. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 15:17, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, just an addendum. There is also a 3rd scale, which is sometimes referred to as the "absolute" scale. I was taught about this in Mathematics as well.

Put simply, short scale (used in USA) is thousand million = billion, thousand billion = trillion. That scale I have also heard referred to as the "thousand base scale".

Long scale (used in GB) is million million = billion, million billion = trillion etc. That scale I have also heard referred to as the "million base scale".

The third scale (only used in mathematics and academia) is an absolute scale, and is million million = billion, billion billion = trillion, trillion trillion = quadrillion. It is not used for any practical purpose however, only for academia. Having an interest in Mathematics, I used it quite a lot.

I can remember being taught that when I found out about the American scale (short scale), which was around 1988. That was the first time that I had even heard that it existed.

I personally prefer the absolute scale with counting. Either that, or SI units. But I stick with long scale when forced to, since that's the standard in Australia and I have to be good. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 15:43, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the article could use more sources. But I'd like to see a source for "absolute scale," because I've never heard of that one. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:40, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Oh I doubt that you've heard of it. Absolute scale is not used anywhere other than as a theoretical term. It shouldn't be included in this article. I think it might be called something else anyway. Its what existed before the British system we now call "long scale". Its totally obsolete. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 16:46, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
For what it's worth, New Zealand usage is the same mess. The only large numbers in frequent discussion are money amounts and with inflation, millions are now small change amongst the prattling class. I had always used (as taught in school) thousand million but most speakers do not bother, they just use billion and grasp for drama thereby. It seemed obvious that a billion should be a million millions, just as a million is a thousand thousands (though annoyingly, a thousand is not a hundred hundreds), and upwards to a trillion being a billion billions, and so on. This gives a non-redundant name scheme for large numbers. Using millions you can count up to nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine of them, and only then advance to a billion. This is rather more interesting than the drab thousand-counting that is associated with the kilo- mega- giga- scale of SI. But dealing with large numbers was obviously too much for young minds to grapple with. For most people the subsequent deluge of US culture washed away faded memories that something might actually not be done the USA way. NickyMcLean 03:28, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
In any case, looking over the article, I think the two sentences you tagged should go until someone can provide a verifiable source. I've rewritten the first one, because the point is that "American" vs. "British" usage are no longer good ways to refer to short and long scale. And I've snipped the second, because:
a) even if true, it is NOT an event that occurred in 1974 and doesn't belong in the 1974 entry in the list;
b) verifiability policy is clear that the burden of providing evidence is on the contributor. Even if true, now that it's been challenged it should go until someone can find a citation. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:52, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Australian usage

Quote:

In Australia, some documents use the term thousand million for 109 in cases where two amounts are being compared using a common unit of one 'million'.

Isn't that the case in any country using any of the scales? If that's the only case where "thousand million" is used in Australia, it does not deserve mention.--Niels Ø 14:09, 1 June 2006 (UTC)