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23-592: More generally, myriad may be used in colloquial vernaculars to imply an indefinitely large number . The Aegean numerals of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations included a single unit to denote tens of thousands. It was written with a symbol composed of a circle with four dashes 𐄫 . In Classical Greek numerals , myriad was written as a capital mu : Μ , as lower case letters did not exist in Ancient Greece. To distinguish this numeral from letters, it

46-415: A noun : both "there are myriad people outside" and "there is a myriad of people outside" are in use. (There are small differences: the former could imply that it is a diverse group of people; the latter does not usually but could possibly indicate a group of exactly ten thousand.) The Merriam-Webster Dictionary notes that confusion over the use of myriad as a noun "seems to reflect a mistaken belief that

69-512: A rapidly changing lexicon . It can also be distinguished by its usage of formulations with incomplete logical and syntactic ordering. A specific instance of such language is termed a colloquialism. The most common term used in dictionaries to label such an expression is colloquial . Colloquialism or general parlance is distinct from formal speech or formal writing . It is the form of language that speakers typically use when they are relaxed and not especially self-conscious. An expression

92-404: Is 萬 in traditional script and 万 in simplified form in both mainland China and Japanese ; its pronunciation varies between languages ( Mandarin : wàn , Hakka : wan , Minnan : bān , Cantonese : maan , Japanese and Korean : man , Vietnamese : vạn , Thai : หมื่น muen and Khmer : ម៉ឺន meun ). Because of this grouping into fours, higher orders of numbers are provided by

115-418: Is labeled colloq. for "colloquial" in dictionaries when a different expression is preferred in formal usage, but this does not mean that the colloquial expression is necessarily slang or non-standard . Some colloquial language contains a great deal of slang, but some contains no slang at all. Slang is often used in colloquial speech, but this particular register is restricted to particular in-groups, and it

138-423: Is most commonly used within specific occupations, industries, activities, or areas of interest. Colloquial language includes slang, along with abbreviations, contractions, idioms, turns-of-phrase, and other informal words and phrases known to most native speakers of a language or dialect. Jargon is terminology that is explicitly defined in relationship to a specific activity, profession, or group. The term refers to

161-493: Is not a necessary element of colloquialism. Other examples of colloquial usage in English include contractions or profanity . "Colloquial" should also be distinguished from "non-standard". The difference between standard and non-standard is not necessarily connected to the difference between formal and colloquial. Formal, colloquial, and vulgar language are more a matter of stylistic variation and diction , rather than of

184-431: Is ordinary natural language , as distinct from specialized forms used in logic or other areas of philosophy. In the field of logical atomism , meaning is evaluated in a different way than with more formal propositions . Colloquialisms are distinct from slang or jargon . Slang refers to words used only by specific social groups, such as demographics based on region, age, or socio-economic identity. In contrast, jargon

207-543: Is still largely used to mean 10,000. 萬 and 万 are also frequently employed colloquially in expressions, clichés , and chengyu (idioms) in the senses of "vast", "numerous", "numberless", and "infinite". A skeleton key is a 万 能 钥 匙 ("myriad-use key"), the emperor was the "lord of myriad chariots " ( 萬乘之主 ), the Great Wall is called 万 里 长 城 ("Myriad- mile Long Wall"), Zhu Xi 's statement 月 映 万 川 ("the moon reflects in myriad rivers") had

230-564: The myriaton appears in Isaac Asimov 's Foundation novel trilogy. In Modern Greek , the word "myriad" is rarely used to denote 10,000, but a million is ekatommyrio ( εκατομμύριο , lit. 'hundred myriad') and a thousand million is disekatommyrio ( δισεκατομμύριο , lit. 'twice hundred myriad'). In East Asia , the traditional numeral systems of China , Korea , and Japan are all decimal -based but grouped into ten thousands rather than thousands. The character for myriad

253-706: The Sinosphere , and "one billion" in English is " 十億 " (ten myllion ) or " 十萬萬 " (ten myriad myriad) in the Sinosphere. Unusually, Vietnam employs its former translation of 兆 , một triệu , to mean 1,000,000 rather than the Chinese figure. Similarly, the Chinese government has adapted the word 兆 to mean the scientific prefix mega- , but transliterations are used instead for giga- , tera- , and other larger prefixes. This has caused confusion in areas closely related to China such as Hong Kong and Macau , where 兆

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276-416: The powers of 10,000 rather than 1,000: In China, 10,000 was 萬萬 in ancient texts but is now called 億 and sometimes written as 1,0000,0000; 10,000 is 1,0000,0000,0000 or 兆 ; 10,000 is 1,0000,0000,0000,0000 or 京 ; and so on. Conversely, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean generally do not have native words for powers of one thousand: what is called "one million" in English is "100 萬 " (100 myriad) in

299-516: The bible to denote "a very large undefinitive number". Colloquial Colloquialism (also called colloquial language , everyday language , or general parlance ) is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in conversation and other informal contexts . Colloquialism is characterized by wide usage of interjections and other expressive devices; it makes use of non-specialist terminology, and has

322-446: The crews supplied by the several nations I find to have been twenty-four myriads" and "What is the distance between one bridge and another? Twelve myriads of parasangs ". Most European languages include variations of "myriad" with similar meanings to the English word. Additionally, the prefix myria- indicating multiplication times ten thousand (×10), was part of the original metric system adopted by France in 1795. Although it

345-419: The language used by people who work in a particular area or who have a common interest. Similar to slang, it is shorthand used to express ideas, people, and things that are frequently discussed between members of a group. Unlike slang, it is often developed deliberately. While a standard term may be given a more precise or unique usage amongst practitioners of relevant disciplines, it is often reported that jargon

368-407: The possible confusion with the generic meaning of "large quantity", however, this is generally restricted to translation of other languages like ancient Greek and Chinese where numbers may be grouped into sets of 10,000 (myriads). Such use permits the translator to remain closer to the original text and avoid repeated and unwieldy mentions of "tens of thousands": for example, "the original number of

391-553: The sense of supporting greater empiricism in Chinese philosophy , and Ha Qiongwen's popular 1959 propaganda poster 毛 主席 万岁 , meaning "Long live Chairman Mao ", literally reads as "[May] Chairman Mao [live to be] 10,000 years old ". A similar term is the Old Turkic word tümän , whose variant forms remain in use for "ten thousand" among modern Mongolian , Turkish . According to Sir Gerard Clauson (1891–1974), it

414-412: The standard and non-standard dichotomy. The term "colloquial" is also equated with "non-standard" at times, in certain contexts and terminological conventions. A colloquial name or familiar name is a name or term commonly used to identify a person or thing in non-specialist language, in place of another usually more formal or technical name. In the philosophy of language , "colloquial language"

437-551: The waves of the sea and to Greek myrmex ( μύρμηξ , "ant") in reference to their swarms. The largest number named in Ancient Greek was the myriad myriad (written MM ) or hundred million. In his Sand Reckoner , Archimedes of Syracuse used this quantity as the basis for a numeration system of large powers of ten, which he used to count grains of sand. In English, myriad is most commonly used to mean "some large but unspecified number". It may be either an adjective or

460-410: The word was originally and is still properly only an adjective ... however, the noun is in fact the older form, dating to the 16th century. The noun myriad has appeared in the works of such writers as Milton (plural 'myriads') and Thoreau ('a myriad of'), and it continues to occur frequently in reputable English." "Myriad" is also infrequently used in English as the specific number 10,000. Owing to

483-468: Was likely borrowed from Tokharian tmān , which may have been borrowed in turn from Old Chinese tman 萬 > wan . In Hebrew the word רבבה (pronounced "revava") means 10,000, and is the highest number represented in Hebrew. Its sources go back to biblical times. Its usage became very rare after the 19th century. The term 60 ריבוא ("60 ribo"), which literally stands for 600,000 is used several times in

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506-486: Was not retained after the 11th CGPM conference in 1960, myriameter is sometimes still encountered as a translation of the Scandinavian mile ( Swedish  & Norwegian :  mil ) of 10 kilometers (6.21 mi), or in some classifications of wavelengths as the adjective myriametric . The myriagramme (10 kg) was a French approximation of the avoirdupois quartier of 25 pounds (11 kg) and

529-439: Was sometimes given an overbar : M . Multiples were written above this sign, so that for example M δ ϕ π β {\displaystyle {\stackrel {\delta \phi \pi \beta }{\mathrm {M} }}} would equal 4,582×10,000 or 45,820,000. The etymology of the word myriad itself is uncertain: it has been variously connected to PIE *meu- ("damp") in reference to

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