Re: "A diagram of C23 basic types"

On 08/04/2025 12:39, David Brown wrote:
<snip>

"myriad" means 10,000, coming directly from the Greek.  But the word is usually used to mean "a great many" or "more than you can count".  (It's like the use of "40" in the Bible - I guess the ancient Greeks were better at counting than the ancient Canaanites.)

Yes, 'myriad' is widely known, and I know several people living in Britain who do use it in that sense when the occasion arises, but I wouldn't necessarily expect people in my killfile to be aware of the word, let alone know anyone who uses it.

You are unlikely to find the word "myriad" meaning specifically 10,000 outside of translated Classical Greek or Latin literature, or in old military history contexts.
 I have not heard of the word "pool" meaning 100,000.  But then, I am not as old as Richard :-)
 In India and other parts of Asia, 100,000 has a specific name such as "lakh" - written as 1,00,000 (it's not just the digit separator that varies between country, but also where the separators are placed).

My first draft did indeed give 'lakh', but in the light of 'billiard' the totally fabricated 'pool' and 'snooker' had a (very light) touch of potential for humour. For anyone who hasn't heard of humour, it was very big in the Sixties and to this day still makes occasional appearances for old times' sake.

The UK officially (as a government standard) used the "long scale" (billion = 10 ^ 12) until 1974.  Unofficially, it was still sometimes used long afterwards - equally, the "short scale" (billion = 10 ^ 9) was often used long before that.  So the short scale is the norm in the UK now (except for politicians talking about national debt - "billions" doesn't sound as bad as "trillions"), but Richard may have learned the long scale at school.

I don't recall ever being taught the long scale explicitly, and whether I glarked it at school or in my reading at home I know not, but had the short scale been in common use I would have soaked it up instead of the long scale.
--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
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