• @Botzo
    link
    342 days ago

    So, I’ve seen this “centibillionaire” title a few times, but I believe it should be hecto(a?)billionaire if I have my metric prefixes correct.

    E.g. a centimeter is a hundredth of a meter, so a hundredth of a billion is 10mil.

    Shout-out to [email protected]

    Or maybe I’m out of the loop on the joke.

    • @atx_aquarian
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      132 days ago

      I totally would agree, except we’re using “billion [dollar]” and not “gigadollar”, so I think we’re already not using a metric term in the first place. It sounds to me like “billion” comes from Latin, and “cent-” as a Latin prefix would mean 100x, so my layman’s understanding is still satisfied with “centbillionaire”. Totally interested if I’m missing something, though.

      • sepi
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        fedilink
        English
        -12 days ago

        Centi is divided by 100. Hecto is multiplied by 100.

        • @angrystego
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          4
          edit-2
          1 day ago

          That’s how it’s used with metric prefixes, but in other contexts you have to take into account the original meaning of the latin word. Centum means a hundred.

          • @[email protected]
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            fedilink
            11 day ago

            In the roman context, a single centurion would be 1/100 of an army grouping.

            But since we aren’t living in roman times, one cent is 1/100 of a dollar.

            Language is inconsistent in it’s usage of cent, so at best the term centibillionaire is confusing. Hectobillionaire has only one possible meaning, so if we’re inventing new words, probably should go with the option that’s more precise.

            • @angrystego
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              31 day ago

              Centi is used in different ways, see centipeda, which means hundred-footed, not one hundredth of feet.

              I do admit I’m not a native speaker.

        • @davidgro
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          52 days ago

          Century, centennial, centipede, etc.