[coryrc]

Because people near Ireland use an obtuse definition of million/billion. Engineering notation is precise and unambiguous.

[genera1]

Arguably, the short scale, not the long scale used in Ireland is obtuse. 12 zeroes for billion and 18 zeroes for trillion, 24 for quadrillion etc is 6n where n is numerical value of Latin prefix, with short scale you've got 3n+3

[chrisseaton]

Nonsense.

> The meaning of the word "million" is common to the short scale and long scale

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1,000,000

[conistonwater]

If you're going to use the scientific notation for billions, you should just use it for everything. I don't think it's so obtuse anyway, it's exactly how I'd spell that number in code.

[frumper]

I'm just curious what 160 million Euro would mean in Ireland. Can you explain, please?

[Ellipsis753]

I think "1 million" means 1e6 everywhere. But the confusion might be because "1 billion" means 1e9 in USA but 1e12 in UK/Ireland. "1 trillion" similarly is 1e12 in USA but 1e18 in UK/Ireland. This is called the short/long scales. It's a headache.

[frumper]

I knew billion was different, but the commenter mentioned million specifically as having a different meaning.