I buried a Swiss woman here (and she had lived here) because if she had gone back to her family home for burial it would on.y have been for 30 years, and her partner didn’t like that thought.
Nearer home, I read in a history of St Kilda (which I have but can't find) that burials there were temporary due to the lack of space, so the lairs were constantly recycled. Cremation can't have been an option there, so I suppose it was a practical approach to the problem.
I have not been on this thread, and there were over 1000 posts I haven't read. I do recall that there is a difference in how Americans count. It is something like us going to 100,000, when the Americans call that a million. This arises in my calcified mind because the Rich Lists are being published at the moment. I think that means that Australian millionaires are richer than American millionaires.
john holdingEcclesiantics Host, Mystery Worshipper Host
Not at 100,000 -- t he difference arises at what you call 100,000,000 -is it a hundred million, or is it a billion?
No, it was 1 000 000 000. Brits used to call it a thousand million, but now fall in line with US usage by calling it 1 billion. All other European languages that I know of call 10**9 milliard and 10**12 1 billion. This is more logical mathematically as billion, trillion, quadrillion etc. are then a million raised to the power of 2, 3, 4 etc. But it is impossible to fight usage.
You think you've got problems. In Welsh, the words for million and billion are miliwn and biliwn. However, a feature of the language is initial consonant mutation, and the most common of these changes both m- and b- to f-, so both words become filiwn.
Ei filiynau - his m/billions.
Just to add to the confusion, the nasal mutation turns b- to m-
Fy miliynau - my m/billions.
There is a convention that biliwn doesn't mutate but it's not universally observed.
Just try counting verbally in Danish and you'll never complain about alternatives again.
It's like a committee decided to take the worst features of French and German counting, combine them, and throw in a bit of abbreviation to make things worse.
No, it was 1 000 000 000. Brits used to call it a thousand million, but now fall in line with US usage by calling it 1 billion. All other European languages that I know of call 10**9 milliard and 10**12 1 billion. This is more logical mathematically as billion, trillion, quadrillion etc. are then a million raised to the power of 2, 3, 4 etc. But it is impossible to fight usage.
When did this happen? I thought a billion was a million million, but when I went to school good Queen Bess was on the throne. (In addition, this comment has made me realise I've never used the term in a precise manner.)
No, it was 1 000 000 000. Brits used to call it a thousand million, but now fall in line with US usage by calling it 1 billion. All other European languages that I know of call 10**9 milliard and 10**12 1 billion. This is more logical mathematically as billion, trillion, quadrillion etc. are then a million raised to the power of 2, 3, 4 etc. But it is impossible to fight usage.
When did this happen? I thought a billion was a million million, but when I went to school good Queen Bess was on the throne. (In addition, this comment has made me realise I've never used the term in a precise manner.)
The term milliard can also be used to refer to 1,000,000,000; whereas "milliard" is rarely used in English,[5] variations on this name often appear in other languages.
You think you've got problems. In Welsh, the words for million and billion are miliwn and biliwn. However, a feature of the language is initial consonant mutation, and the most common of these changes both m- and b- to f-, so both words become filiwn.
Ei filiynau - his m/billions.
Just to add to the confusion, the nasal mutation turns b- to m-
Fy miliynau - my m/billions.
There is a convention that biliwn doesn't mutate but it's not universally observed.
Not to mention Welsh having two different counting systems, one (traditional) vigesimal and one (modernish) decimal. The former usually now only used in conjunction with time related concepts ( telling time, people's ages, dates, etc.). If the older system has words for million, billion and so on, I've never heard them, but I suppose there wasn't much call for them historically
Mutations are bugger, but occasionally give rise to some amusing bilingual doubles entendres
Many years ago when driving through northern Arizona we were listening to the news on a Navajo radio station. We had no idea what they were saying, but we enjoyed the sound of it. I got the impression that they did not have words for really large numbers. While going on and on in Navajo, they would suddenly use the word "million" or "billion." (The only other words I understood were names, mostly of politicians.)
You think you've got problems. In Welsh, the words for million and billion are miliwn and biliwn. However, a feature of the language is initial consonant mutation, and the most common of these changes both m- and b- to f-, so both words become filiwn.
Ei filiynau - his m/billions.
Just to add to the confusion, the nasal mutation turns b- to m-
Fy miliynau - my m/billions.
There is a convention that biliwn doesn't mutate but it's not universally observed.
Not to mention Welsh having two different counting systems, one (traditional) vigesimal and one (modernish) decimal. The former usually now only used in conjunction with time related concepts ( telling time, people's ages, dates, etc.). If the older system has words for million, billion and so on, I've never heard them, but I suppose there wasn't much call for them historically
Mutations are bugger, but occasionally give rise to some amusing bilingual doubles entendres
Just try counting verbally in Danish and you'll never complain about alternatives again.
It's like a committee decided to take the worst features of French and German counting, combine them, and throw in a bit of abbreviation to make things worse.
The result? 93 = "three and half-fives".
And in French of course it's four-twenties-and-thirteen.
Many years ago when driving through northern Arizona we were listening to the news on a Navajo radio station. We had no idea what they were saying, but we enjoyed the sound of it. I got the impression that they did not have words for really large numbers. While going on and on in Navajo, they would suddenly use the word "million" or "billion." (The only other words I understood were names, mostly of politicians.)
Oddly the Navajo language is of the same language group as Dené (Chipewayan) which is north central Canada (borders of Alberta-Saskatchewan-Northwest Territories), very far away. They can understand each other.
Just try counting verbally in Danish and you'll never complain about alternatives again.
It's like a committee decided to take the worst features of French and German counting, combine them, and throw in a bit of abbreviation to make things worse.
The result? 93 = "three and half-fives".
And in French of course it's four-twenties-and-thirteen.
Yes. Which I maintain is a lot more comprehensible than "three and half-fives".
Just try counting verbally in Danish and you'll never complain about alternatives again.
It's like a committee decided to take the worst features of French and German counting, combine them, and throw in a bit of abbreviation to make things worse.
The result? 93 = "three and half-fives".
And in French of course it's four-twenties-and-thirteen.
Yes. Which I maintain is a lot more comprehensible than "three and half-fives".
Many years ago when driving through northern Arizona we were listening to the news on a Navajo radio station. We had no idea what they were saying, but we enjoyed the sound of it. I got the impression that they did not have words for really large numbers. While going on and on in Navajo, they would suddenly use the word "million" or "billion." (The only other words I understood were names, mostly of politicians.)
Oddly the Navajo language is of the same language group as Dené (Chipewayan) which is north central Canada (borders of Alberta-Saskatchewan-Northwest Territories), very far away. They can understand each other.
Just try counting verbally in Danish and you'll never complain about alternatives again.
It's like a committee decided to take the worst features of French and German counting, combine them, and throw in a bit of abbreviation to make things worse.
The result? 93 = "three and half-fives".
And in French of course it's four-twenties-and-thirteen.
Yes. Which I maintain is a lot more comprehensible than "three and half-fives".
No question.
I can't for the life of me work out how three and half-fives comes to 93
To continue the tangent if I may, many east Asian languages have 10 000 as the basic large number. Sometimes they group the zeros in fours, so in Japanese 1 Man is 1,0000. Man man, or 1 oku is 1,0000,0000. In other words 100 million. Very confusing. In English the literal meaning of a myriad is 10,000 but it is almost always used figuratively to mean a huge number.
Yes, vigesimal is based of units of twenty ( I think from the Latin for 20)
Of course in some parts of the north of England they still count their sheep in Norse: yan, tan, thethera . . . .
There are in fact some cultures that haven't developed a counting system so can only count : one, two, many, many more.
Such communities hold property in common, and therefore have no need to count sheep, goats or anything else, because everything is owned by everyone.
There are plenty of reasons to count, even in a society where everybody holds all property in common. One very obvious one: Did as many sheep come back this evening as went out this morning?
Yes, vigesimal is based of units of twenty ( I think from the Latin for 20)
Of course in some parts of the north of England they still count their sheep in Norse: yan, tan, thethera . . . .
Actually they don't. The Cumbric Score is one of those odd things which crops up in various places but no-one seems to able to find anyone who uses it.
It's usually claimed to be Cumbric rather than Norse; it is a bit of a mixture - yan and tan are Germanic; pimp (5), dik (10), bumfit (15) and their variations seem more Brittonic. Other numbers are alliterative pairs.
That is true of course: perhaps their shepherds are especially attentive. The concept of crespondance is understood (i.e. There are as many sheep are there are stones in my hand - about the level of a cricket umpire 😀)*
Perhaps it would have been more accurate to say that their counting system does not support arithmetic processing.
* for those unfamiliar with cricket, each 'over' (that is each period of play) consists of six balls being bowled - umpires traditionally keep count of balls by transferring pebbles from one pocket to the other)
The best studied anumeric cultures are the Pirahi and Ma nduruku clans (spelling from memory) of South America, though IIRC the later do have a slightly more 'advanced' system. There are, also some tribes on Papua New Guinea that have not developed counting systems that go much beyond 4 or 5 ( depend if you think thumbs are digits)
I can't remember the term off the top of my head, but there is a demotic Welsh term for 99 that translates as, 'Except one, five twenties.'
The one I know is; cant comyn un (= a hundred but one), considerably less of a mouth full than : pedwar ar pumdeg ar deg ac pedair ugain* = four on fifteen on ten plus four twenties
* I'm not sure that's the right spelling I've probably missed a mutation somewher, but it's the right concept
The best studied anumeric cultures are the Pirahi and Ma nduruku clans (spelling from memory) of South America, though IIRC the later do have a slightly more 'advanced' system. There are, also some tribes on Papua New Guinea that have not developed counting systems that go much beyond 4 or 5 ( depend if you think thumbs are digits)
Comments
They also dig up many bones and then build bone chapels from them on the Iberian peninsula.
There's also the custom of displaying corpes under glass in churches in Mexico and points south.
And also points north.
(I visited her following a trip to the nearby Cloisters many years ago.)
We'd call that a hundred million. A thousand million is a billion.
Whichever usage you follow.
Ei filiynau - his m/billions.
Just to add to the confusion, the nasal mutation turns b- to m-
Fy miliynau - my m/billions.
There is a convention that biliwn doesn't mutate but it's not universally observed.
It's like a committee decided to take the worst features of French and German counting, combine them, and throw in a bit of abbreviation to make things worse.
The result? 93 = "three and half-fives".
I think the idea is that mille - thousand, million thousand thousands.
SI of course goes differently and uses Mega.
When did this happen? I thought a billion was a million million, but when I went to school good Queen Bess was on the throne. (In addition, this comment has made me realise I've never used the term in a precise manner.)
1974 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion
(From Wikipedia.)
Not to mention Welsh having two different counting systems, one (traditional) vigesimal and one (modernish) decimal. The former usually now only used in conjunction with time related concepts ( telling time, people's ages, dates, etc.). If the older system has words for million, billion and so on, I've never heard them, but I suppose there wasn't much call for them historically
Mutations are bugger, but occasionally give rise to some amusing bilingual doubles entendres
Not just time - hanner cant ceiniog - 50p
1 lakh is 100,000. 100 lakhs is a crore.
And in French of course it's four-twenties-and-thirteen.
Yes. Which I maintain is a lot more comprehensible than "three and half-fives".
Yes, although that was for show, not sheer necessity.
No question.
Somebody walked a long way.
I can't for the life of me work out how three and half-fives comes to 93
Three plus half from five multiplied by twenty
3 + [(5 - 0.5) x 20]
This assumes it's a vigesimal system, but truly bizarre,
Of course in some parts of the north of England they still count their sheep in Norse: yan, tan, thethera . . . .
Many
Many Many
Many Many Many
Many Many Many Many
LOTS
Such communities hold property in common, and therefore have no need to count sheep, goats or anything else, because everything is owned by everyone.
There are plenty of reasons to count, even in a society where everybody holds all property in common. One very obvious one: Did as many sheep come back this evening as went out this morning?
Actually they don't. The Cumbric Score is one of those odd things which crops up in various places but no-one seems to able to find anyone who uses it.
It's usually claimed to be Cumbric rather than Norse; it is a bit of a mixture - yan and tan are Germanic; pimp (5), dik (10), bumfit (15) and their variations seem more Brittonic. Other numbers are alliterative pairs.
Perhaps it would have been more accurate to say that their counting system does not support arithmetic processing.
* for those unfamiliar with cricket, each 'over' (that is each period of play) consists of six balls being bowled - umpires traditionally keep count of balls by transferring pebbles from one pocket to the other)
I would really like to know which non-counting cultures these are, though. Maybe I'll do a stroll through Google later, if nobody knows names here.
Does any Shipmate know which it would be in Montreal?
The one I know is; cant comyn un (= a hundred but one), considerably less of a mouth full than : pedwar ar pumdeg ar deg ac pedair ugain* = four on fifteen on ten plus four twenties
* I'm not sure that's the right spelling I've probably missed a mutation somewher, but it's the right concept
Thank you!