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by witrak 344 days ago
It is used in all European countries (I don't know any European country that doesn't use it). I know the long scale under the name "European" and the short scale as "American".
3 comments

>I don't know any European country that doesn't use it

With the exception of people over 70, the UK has pretty uniformly moved to the American system. All of our govt statistics, corporate finances info, day-to-day conversations involving billions refer to "one thousand million"

Same in Australia. I vaguely remember learning the old scale at school and being confused by American usage. Now everyone uses short scale, and most young people probably don't even know the old scale existed.
Same in Ireland, the long scale was already an elderly person thing when I was a child
UK used to do it the European way, but has adopted American way since (IIRC) about 50 years ago. As a Brit I wish we still used the traditional way.

(And despite Brexit, UK still is a European country!)

It may take fifty years, but I think that you will eventually rejoin the EU.
I definitely hope so! (And hope it won't take that long, but it wouldn't surprise me.)
Or whatever the thing is then.
I guess US could change to Long scale and that would make their debt sound way less, it is no longer in trillion dollar range!