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They look like numbers. They sound like numbers. You kinda know they are numbers. But they're not actually numbers. Linguistic anthropologist Stephen Chrisomalis explains what's going on with indefinite hyperbolic numerals like 'zillion', 'squillion' and 'kajillion'.
SCADS OF ADDITIONAL MATERIAL:
Read more from Stephen Chrisomalis about indefinite hyperbolic numerals, and about other numerical linguistic matters.
How about a supercut of Carl Sagan saying 'billion', 'trillion' and 'million'?
In case you want to know the proper names for all the big numbers, here they are. And you can build your own -illion numbers.
Etymology of a thousand = a swollen hundred.
Here's where PM Harold Wilson swiped left on the old British billion.
How a 9-year-old coined the terms for whacking great numbers, 'googol' and 'googolplex'.
Google named itself after googol, but it could have been called...BackRub??!
A computational model that understands hyperbolic and other nonliteral uses of number words.
Thanks to bigger debts, we got used to the word 'trillion'. (Remember the creepy science fiction novel Trillions?)
There are fictitious number words in many other languages; which do you use?
The transcript of this episode is at theallusionist.org/transcripts/zillions.
YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
caponier
CREDITS:
Stephen Chrisomalis is a linguistic anthropologist at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. He has been collecting rare words since 1996 at phrontistery.info.
This episode was produced by me; the music is by Martin Austwick.
Find me at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/helenzaltzman and instagram.com/helenzaltzman - and, hopefully not performing just for my parents, at this year's London Podcast Festival.
