Long scale

Long scale

1. ^ describes billion as an outdated synonym of milliard, and says that the new meaning of 10 was decreed in 1961, but never caught on.
2. ^ (milliard) for 10, but mil millones (thousand millions) is used more frequently. The word billón is sometimes used in the short scale sense in those countries more influenced by the United States, where "billion" means "one thousand millions". The usage of billón to mean "one thousand millions", controversial from the start, was denounced by the Royal Spanish Academy as recently as 2010, but was finally accepted in a later version of the official dictionary as standard usage among educated Spanish speakers in the United States (including Puerto Rico).
3. ^ , triliono etc. used to be ambiguous, and both long and short scale were used and presented in dictionaries. The current edition of the main Esperanto dictionary PIV however recommends the long scale meanings, as does the grammar PMEG. Ambiguity may be avoided by the use of the unofficial but generally recognised suffix -iliono, whose function is analogous to the long scale, i.e. it is appended to a (single) numeral indicating the power of a million, e.g. duiliono (from du meaning "two") = biliono = 10, triiliono = triliono = 10, etc. following the 1×10 long scale convention. Miliardo is an unambiguous term for 10, and generally the suffix -iliardo, for values 1×10, for example triliardo = 10 and so forth.
4. ^ officially means 10, trilione means 10, etc. Colloquially, bilione can mean both 10 and 10; trilione can mean both 10 and (rarer) 10 and so on. Therefore, in order to avoid ambiguity, they are seldom used. Forms such as miliardo (milliard) for 10, mille miliardi (a thousand milliards) for 10, un milione di miliardi (a million milliards) for 10, un miliardo di miliardi (a milliard of milliards) for 10, mille miliardi di miliardi (a thousand milliard of milliards) for 10 are more common.