Reply to: Problem with my billions

[Mich the Tester]

How many's a brazillion?

10 to the power of the population of Brazil?

[Cheshire Cat]

How many's a brazillion?

[d000hg]

They must be really good at mental arithmetic.

Cue "education isn't what it used to be" thread...

[Platypus]

[bogeyman]

Simon? is that you?

Indeed it is.

Furthermore, I believe you still owe me three shillings and fourpence-ha'penny for the Wimpy all-day breakfast I bought you in 1970.

[Platypus]

Do I know you

Simon? is that you?

[Spacecadet]

You still come across people that prefer pounds and ounces and the other awful imperial units using different and awkward number bases, for some unfathomable reason other than it is what they are used to. They must be really good at mental arithmetic.

Or they know that by using pounds and ounces it's easier to rip off people used to dealing with metric amounts and proper decimal numbers

[TimberWolf]

Yes - I knew someone just like that

He used to convert back to pounds shillings and pence too so he could moan about prices in "old money".

What a knob head !

You still come across people that prefer pounds and ounces and the other awful imperial units using different and awkward number bases, for some unfathomable reason other than it is what they are used to. They must be really good at mental arithmetic.

[bogeyman]

Yes - I knew someone just like that

He used to convert back to pounds shillings and pence too so he could moan about prices in "old money".

What a knob head !

Do I know you

[Platypus]

I'm sure some patriotic diehards somewhere do though, if only to be awkward.

Yes - I knew someone just like that

He used to convert back to pounds shillings and pence too so he could moan about prices in "old money".

What a knob head !

[sasguru]

Does anyone else get annoyed when Gordon Brown says "we are spending four billions on the NHS..." ?

Is it grammatically correct to use the plural 'billions' here? You wouldn't say "I have six hundreds of pounds".

He pronounces it "bullions" probably an unconsious admission of guilt at his selling of the UK's gold reserves.
What a complete twunt of a donkey.

[swamp]

Does anyone else get annoyed when Gordon Brown says "we are spending four billions on the NHS..." ?

Is it grammatically correct to use the plural 'billions' here? You wouldn't say "I have six hundreds of pounds".

[swamp]

The Russians have:

million 1,000,000
milliard 1,000,000,000
billion 1,000,000,000,000

HTH

[Doggy Styles]

The old british billion is now called a trillion.

So, the total personal debt in this country is now expressed as:

£1,500,000,000,000 =
£1,500,000 million =
£1,500 billion =
£1.5 trillion

The old british definition was more logical, but in practice we'd need something else to express 10^9.

[sasguru]

How disappointing, I thought this was a thread about DP.