Talk:nonillion

Does this exist? Polyglot 15:48, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It's in Webster 1913, AHD4, and m-w.com, but I expect its usage is probably quite rare—generally now when people need numbers that big they use exponential notation. —Muke Tever 16:29, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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Each sense. Used at all? Per morphological definition? In hyperbole?DCDuring TALK 16:01, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

At least some have used one sense. DCDuring TALK 03:58, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Citations seem pretty easy to find. I would expect most of them to be in the modern "short" sense rather than the original French "long" sense, since that system has progressively died out as our need for names for very large and very small numbers has grown. But some careful calculations may be needed to make sure. My best guess is that the "long" sense will turn out to be dictionary only - for instance, an entirely different result is obtained with a gbooks search cutting off at 1960. SpinningSpark 06:47, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm torn between strict adherence to our attestation criteria and maintaining the "long" sense to help someone who might stumble over its use somewhere. DCDuring TALK 09:49, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I've been too busy today to go through the cites and separate them out - maybe I'll get round to it tonight - but two stand out immediately as being the long sense. Can you clarify for me the rule on mentions please. If an author uses nonillion but then immediately explains the term in running text does that count as merely a mention? What if the author uses it without explanation in running text but defines it in a footnote or endnote - does that then count as a use? An awful lot of them fall in to one of those two categories. SpinningSpark 13:23, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I certainly prefer a more pure use, but that is a personal preference, perhaps widely shared. Purer usage doesn't seem to be a requirement. There is some vague gradability of use vs mention, witness the adjective mentiony (wikt jargon). Others tolerate almost any such occurrence of a term used in text in its own language. Some even accept such use of italicized terms and transliterations from other languages. It helps if it is not in quotes or italics, I suppose, or if the definition is in a footnote, or if two senses are being differentiated, etc. DCDuring TALK 13:47, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Re: "If an author uses nonillion but then immediately explains the term in running text does that count as merely a mention?": No, that's still a use. Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion#Conveying meaning explicitly permits this, giving the example of “They raised the jib (a small sail forward of the mainsail) in order to get the most out of the light wind” in an account of a sailboat race. (I think there may be limits to this — for example, if a book about pretentious language uses+explains various pretentious words for the sake of seeming clever, I would not consider that a very credible use — but that's the general idea.) —Ruakh_TALK 14:04, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

@Spinningspark: How do you know that the 2011 Gobus cite uses the "long" sense? Google would not let me see the underlying Table 3, which might support it. DCDuring TALK 19:19, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Except for the Fowler quote, each of the short quotes establish that they're short quotes in the quote. (FYI: a standard-sized ice cube is one cubic inch.) The 1819 long quote is slightly erroneous in leaving out billions; it requires inspection of the table on the previous page to make sure we're really talking about the long scale. (Of course, it doesn't make any more sense as a listing of the short scale, and it is well and truly public domain, so easily accessible.) I've added a footnote from the text to make the 1837 sense clearly long scale; however, it strikes me as as clearly hyperbole as the quote we have under hyperbole, and the footnote likely to be added by an editor. The Henry Globus one doesn't justify it in the quote, and given that we have several citations of "This totals about five nonillion (5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) bacteria" and that for that to be long scale, it would have to not only be a septillion times larger, it would have to be exactly a septillion sizes larger, which strikes me as more unlikely then a simple copy of the 5 nonillion number for bacteria from some other source. (Of course, it could have misunderstood the original nonillion as long scale and then repeated it as long scale...)

I don't think "(slang, hyperbolic) An unspecified very large number." fits our one citation under that heading at all. It's not slang in senses #2 or #3, and sense #1 seems to claim that all rare words are slang. "And saw a nonillion, no, a novemdecillion of them!" is not just any unspecified very large number; it's one that's smaller than a novemdecillion.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:17, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree that slang is wrong. But that kind of use seems at best to imply and depend on some ordering, not on any precise equality. I don't think that writer would feel that they had erred if someone pointed out an error in arithmetic in their use of such words; they would feel that the critic had missed the point. I view this as just a step removed from words like "gazillions". DCDuring TALK 22:23, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Do we really need two hyperbolic entries, one under Noun and one under Cardinal Number? I assume that was an oversight?

I'm not sure how far we want to take this. If someone writes a short story about a man-eating moose that's chasing down hikers and eating them, are we going to make a definition "any moose-like creature" because he obviously wasn't concerned about errors in zoology? If an author says "crushes them like a moose had run over them", he's not depending on specific details of moose-hood. Musicians have used "eyes of green" because green made the rhyme scheme work; does that make "some color suitable for eyes" a definition of green?

And when someone writes "a trillion, a nonillion young men" or "And saw a nonillion, no, a novemdecillion of them!", the order clearly matters, so they don't support just "An unspecified very large number." Each definition line should stand alone, but you lose critical information if "And saw a nonillion, no, a novemdecillion of them!" is replaced with "And saw an unspecified very large number, no, an unspecified very large number of them!".--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:30, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Re the Gobus quote, the author may well be mistaken but he definitely meant the long nonillion which he explicitly enumerates earlier in the book and which can be seen in the e-book version. I cited the print book rather than the e-book as I was unsure whether e-books counted as durable. I would have thought that it is only his use of the 10⁵⁴ number that concerned us here, regardless of whether that is an accurate count of bacteria. SpinningSpark 23:44, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

This appears to be the original paper that came up with the five nonillion number (although they don't use that word) and conclusively shows Gobus is in error. SpinningSpark 23:57, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

It's nice to be clear about what's exactly going on in a quote, especially when we've got confusion going on. In particular, I think the clarification should be permanently on the word page with the citation. (I'm sure some logician/philosopher/linguist would have a heyday with a true statement that was misinterpreted and printed as a false statement that was misinterpreted by the readers back into a true statement.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:30, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate the effort that has gone into this determination. But, pity the poor user of the entry. DCDuring TALK 03:30, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I've added a footnote, but would be ok with the whole cite being removed if you don't think it is helpful. SpinningSpark 14:02, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

All senses pass RFV by my ken! Impressive work! - -sche (discuss) 06:18, 18 October 2012 (UTC)