Talk:Myriad

Asians

It's just nonsense to say that Asians have "no concept of a million": large numbers are simply named every 4 orders of magnitude, rather than every 3 orders of magnitude. --Sewing 23:06, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It should be mentioned that the Japanese and Korean word/concept is a borrowing from Old Chinese. They have a concept of million, but it is quite hard to recalculate between the two systems in ones mind, without resorting to writing down the numbers(and adding the decimal points in the correct position... Hope you understand what I mean...)

(Ten and a half years late, but...) Of course the Asians have a concept of a million; they just call it a hundred myriad (and in my experience, the phrase "hundred myriad" gets frequently encountered in Chinese, presumably because of translating from the Western thousand-grouping system). Double sharp (talk) 11:58, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Before I rewrote this page, it was mostly a rant about the correct usage of the term myriad. I personally don't think this should be the centerpiece of this page, but I don't feel strongly enough about it to do anything about it. ilan 01:21, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Usage

I'm confused by the paragraphs on usage. One sentence says: "It is often incorrectly used as a noun." But surely when it's used as a number, this can be usage as a noun. It may be that this sentence applies only to use "when unspecified". If so, it would be good to make that clearer.

On correct usage the example is given of "There is a myriad of people outside." This is presumably an example of correct usage as a number but all the previous analogies to other numbers compare it with numbers like hundred or thousand. But you wouldn't say: "There is a hundred of people outside" or "There is a thousand of people outside." Is there any evidence that it would be incorrect to say: "There are a myriad people," (using the same construction as for hundred or thousand) since this example seems to suggest that such a construction would be wrong? On the other hand, if you compare the construction with "a score of sheep" or "a gross of eggs" then the example given seems quite reasonable.

Finally, the point that "myriad" should not be pluralized needs clarification, particularly since it is pluralized in the article itself in paragraph one. It may be that this point is only intended to apply to use as a number. But we say, "thousands of starlings" and "hundreds of ships". The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary quotes an example from Wellington: "their myriads of horses" and from Milton "Who... cloth'd with transcendent brightness didst outshine Myriads though bright." It may be that this point was only intended to apply to compound numbers like "ten myriad". If so, that needs to be made clearer. Adrian Robson 18:29, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

The assertion that "There are a myriad of people outside" is incorrect is a classic example of false schoolboy pedantry trying to codify itself in Wikipedia. See M-W's explanation. Plurals are also addressed there. English usage disputes need to be moved into their own section, as well. --ToobMug 03:45, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

dictionary.com too. In fact, the first three unique Google hits for online+dictionary all give "a myriad of" examples, so I think I've presented enough evidence to just go ahead. I'll take out the incorrect text and the detail on pluralisation (which fails to stand on its own). Perhaps it can come back when it's not wrong, but I think this should link the wiktionary page and that the usage disputes should be discussed there. --ToobMug 13:49, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Sigh .. there is nothing wrong with "a myriad of". The problem is whether the preceding word is 'is' or 'are'.

I don't agree. The word "Myriad" should be used in exactly the same way as the word "thousand", and similarly, "myriads" as "thousands". Or as "million"; for a myriad is the unit of 10,000, that lies between those two. As for the preceding word, that depends solely on whether the "myriad(s)" is singular or plural.

RobinClay (talk) 18:03, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

"Gross" and "dozen" are not orders of ten, so may be expected to possibly be different ("gross" is; "dozen" isn't - probably a reflection of their origin).

RobinClay (talk) 18:03, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

The original writer's text was indeed over-pedantic, but the point is worth making. Will see if I can craft a lighter version. (I like your sentnce move btw.) quota 17:35, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, "is"/"are" debate can be had over all sorts of alternatives to myriad, so there doesn't seem much cause to address it here. I couldn't bring myself to try to correct somebody for saying "there are a truckload of people outside", even if there was only the one truck. --ToobMug 19:25, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's so badly wrong there's no point in trying to correct it! But I think if you listen carefully, you may find that people actually say "there's a truckload..." quota

Yi tone 4 is 10,000,000,000,000

Yi4 comes after wan4wan4wan4, so its 10x10,000³ Kr5t 21:10, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Yi4

I'm quite positive that Yi4 (亿) means 10000^2 or 10^8. It is in the Chinese version of Wikipedia.

"1776" in UK and US English

This system works until ten tens, which requires a new description, a hundred. One similarly names numbers less than 10,000 by counting the number of hundreds plus the rest, e.g., 1776 is seventeen hundred and seventy six.

I think we may need to distinguish between British, US and other forms of English here. In the UK we would certainly use "seventeen seventy-six" colloquially for the year (though this particular year is not quite so famous in the UK!!); however, for the number itself we would more likely say "one thousand, seven hundred and seventy-six". In fact, this latter form is sometimes even used for used for years, in very formal contexts: my degree certificate says, "one thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine," for 1999, for example, whereas I know that formal documents in the US say things like "in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-nine".

There's also the matter of when to omit the "and" in US English (though this is getting off-topic) - in the UK we would always say "two hundred and six", "two thousand and six", etc, rather than "two hundred six", "two thousand six". In the US, "seventeen hundred and seventy six" seems to have an "and", while "two thousand six" usually does not. E.g. if you look at the signing of Presidential proclamations, there was an "and" in the 1990s, but not in 2001-2006 (though this might just be related to a change of President?!)

--Mtford 21:30, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

metre vs meter

As both was used before I came to the page and I obviously missed some when I tried to create uniformity, I have fixed that and now they all go with -tre. The -tre suffix is, I believe, the SI standard with '-ter' being an 'accepted alternative'. I did however go through the history of the page to find which type of spelling (British or American) was first introduced to the page and the earliest edit I saw that first gave us a meter or metre was by Gcapp1959 on 30th July 2005, which uses the -tre spellings. Narson 01:51, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Correct: "metre" is the standard international spelling, as per the SI. —DIV (194.193.146.160 (talk) 08:53, 3 January 2019 (UTC))

Concept of diversity and use as adjective

It seems to me that the concept of variety or diversity is often associated with the word, as well as the concept of a large quantity. Merriam Webster online lists such a meaning "both numerous and diverse" (as an adjective). However, this meaning is not mentioned in the Wikipedia article. The article also (to me) seems to over-emphasize the use of the word as a noun. Its use as an adjective is mentioned, but its use as a noun seems to get undue weight. Personally, I think I have seen it used more often as an adjective than as a noun. —131.107.0.72 (talk) 19:51, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Why is the Chinese equivalent so lavishly explained in an article about a Greek word is beyond me. Is Greece or English language (that use the word "myriad") in "Sinosphere" ?! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.135.192.46 (talk) 19:35, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Disputed information removed from the article by one user

Other languages

• Afrikaans: magdom
• Albanian: pafundësi
• Armenian: anhamar
• Azerbaijani: saysız-hesabsız
• Amharic: ′əlf (እልፍ)
• Hebrew: revava (רבבה)
  • Biblical Hebrew: "ribo" (ריבוא)
• Malayalam: Ayutham (അയുതം)
• Tamil: Mudivili
• Telugu: Challa
• Thai: meun (หมื่น)
• Turkic: tümen
• Mongolian: Tüm (Түм)
• Tagalog: hindi mabilang

Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 12:49, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

[Additional comment originally omitted by Til when he ported the conversation:

Absolutely, feel free to find sources and give some context to those culture's use of the term. However, at the moment, those entries are completely unsourced and Wikipedia is NOT a WP:DICTIONARY. Long lists of random words in random sets of foreign languages belong at wikt:myriad, which is precisely where I put them. — LlywelynII 12:00, 1 November 2013 (UTC)]

For what it's worth, not a single one of those "definitions" has an entry at the moment, so several are probably erroneous or complete trolling. — LlywelynII 12:02, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

You are incorrect, none of them are "trolling",m these are all legitimate words, and they are all languages spoken today, so per policy there is no need to "prove" that these are real words because they are known languages. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 12:23, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Then source them. There is no proof at all that they are what they claim and, in fact, the lack of wiktionary entries for any of them suggests rather strongly that they are either wrong or misspelled. (Armenian, for example, uses a different word for myriad and doesn't use Latin script.) — LlywelynII 12:37, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps you didn't understand me, let me say it again in simpler terms. Wikipedia policy is not to require sourcing "proof" for foreign language words when there are people who know these languages and know that they are the correct words. If we say the French word for flower is fleur, we don't require a reference "proving" this, because this is common knowledge. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 12:40, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

You may have missed this, but 3RR means you cannot revert 3 times within 24 hours. No need to call the law in, but you are the one edit warring here. I have given you policies and reasons and you have replied with "but I like it". That is unacceptable and unconstructive.

Those words need sourcing because they are obscure languages and probably (per wiktionary) wrong. — LlywelynII 12:48, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

"Obscure" is in the eye of the beholder. They aren't considered "obscure" by their speakers, that is your systemic bias perception. I have told you what the policy is on sourcing foreign language words and you are 1) making policies up according to your systemic bias 2) telling me that I have no argument other than "but I like it." You have no cause to remove valid information from wikipedia because you DON'T like it and then unilaterally insist in its removal in accordance with your BIASES on what you consider too "obscure". Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 12:53, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

They're not well-represented by editors here, so we can't assume they're correct without sources particularly given that wiktionary has no entries for any of them apart from Thai. There isn't any systemic bias apart from yours; I did my edits in the middle of a more or less day-long cleanup of this page and related ones. I have no idea why you're here or (if you care this much) why you don't simply source them.

I also have no idea why you question my good faith understanding of the policies but, assuming your good faith, what is with the insults, reverts, warnings, and inability to address any of my concerns or the actual policies I mentioned? Whether you dislike me or not, Wikipedia still isn't a dictionary; these entries still don't have sources; and I still did port them over to Wiktionary so that there isn't any data being lost. Relax. — LlywelynII 13:15, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I'll just move this here. The initial conversation is in the edit lines and at Til's talk space, but he seems to have ported most of it over.

In any case, no problem with inclusion of thorough and well-linked set of Asian translations and the importance to their culture. Pretty big problem with a long list of random words from various cultures with no context (WP:NOT#DICT, WP:NOTDIR) and no source (WP:RS). I took the time to port the list over to wikt:myriad and even format the translations, but Til seems not to respond to the policies on the edit notices or to the conversation at his talk page. — LlywelynII 13:11, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Question: What difference does it make to you if they are "Asian" or not?

This is encyclopedic information, this is the information I am looking for when I come to this article, these are not "random" words with "no context", they are straight up translations of the identical concept of "myriad" in world languages which you dismissively wrote off as "obscure languages". The fact that they are "obscure" to YOU doesn't mean nobody else has ever heard of them. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 13:15, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

It has to do with the comment above yours, that I was also addressing when this edit warring started. — LlywelynII 13:20, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

"I personally consider all those languages obscure, and demand sourcing to prove that those are really words." Sorry, not a wikipedia policy, LlywelynII. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 13:19, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

You're wrong. It actually is, as I pointed out and linked after your very first edit.

(And the obscurity has to do with whether other editors here can be assumed to know the language and be able to double check it without sources. They are objectively obscure, not subjectively so.) — LlywelynII 13:24, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

"Assumed"? Your ASSUMPTIONS are causing your systemic bias. Don't assume anything about what languages editors can speak, because you'll probably be wrong. The "obscurity" of Afrikaans, Hebrew, etc. is all part of your PERCEPTION based on where you're standing, perhaps in some ivory tower somewhere. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 13:30, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Look at the usage stats again. Systemic bias wouldn't even exist if most people here weren't American and European males. More to the point, as I've said above, they're not obscure because I don't know them; they're obscure because they have no source and Wiktionary's never heard of them (unlike other words from the same languages, making them rather suspect).

So while you find some sources, feel free to write in their wiktionary entries from the links I added to wikt:myriad and show me how "wrong" I am. — LlywelynII 13:37, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't give a shit if wiktionary has heard of them. You are making these open source projects into some kind of divine authority? There are living, breathing editors who SPEAK these languages FLUENTLY and don't find them "obscure" in the least, how about assuming a little good faith that they aren't making up fake words for "myriad" to fool you? Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 13:45, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Kindly don't curse. And, again, I have every faith that native speakers of those languages exist and know them; the entire question is sourcing their use here, which (per systemic bias), probably did not come from any native speaker, let alone one who spoke all of them. — LlywelynII 14:41, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

"There isn't any systemic bias apart from yours"

You told me "There isn't any systemic bias apart from yours" Do you even KNOW what SYSTEMIC BIAS means? It involves REMOVING information, there is no way I am engaging in it if I want the material to be INCLUDED. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 13:18, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

That's actually not what WP:SYSTEMICBIAS means at all. You're thinking of Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point or something similar but, again, removing unsourced non-encyclopedic content (on a page with a banner saying unsourced content will be removed) is not biased or unhelpful. — LlywelynII 13:22, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

You are mistaken once again, that's EXACTLY what "Systemic Bias" is. I am a member of the Systemic Bias project, and everything you are saying is DEAD WRONG. Systemic bias keeps information OUT of articles, I cannot be engaging in it by trying to keep the info there. You have stated that any languages you are not personally familiar with are too "obscure" for inclusion, that is the very epitome of "Systemic bias". Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 13:26, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

That is not at all what I have said and, if that's what you're taking away from what I said, I hope you don't work in any sort of supervisory role over there. In any case, reread your own page. The very nature of Wiki's systemic bias (the nature of who shows up and double checks these pages) means that we can't assume that these particular words are correct without sources.

Again, if you're this livid, just source them and show how "wrong" I am. (Ideally with some cultural context, so you're not just leaving inappropriate dictionary material in the encyclopedia article instead of the dictionary entry.) — LlywelynII 13:33, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

These are foreign language words, there is no requirement nor precedent for sourcing them, and I refuse to have to "prove" to you that these really are foreign language words. We don't have to "prove" that fleur means flower in French before we can say that. You may look down on Hebrew, Mongolian, Telugu etc., as more "obscure" languages than French that therefore require "proof", but we have no obligation to accommodate that bias of yours. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 13:40, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

You absolutely have to source them. — LlywelynII 14:43, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Not foreign language words I don't, you are inventing rules based on your SYSTEMIC BIAS perception of what langiuages are "obscure". Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 16:11, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

The word and the concept

The current lead of the article reads "Myriad (Ancient Greek: μυριάς, myrias, pluralized as μυριάδες, myriades) is a classical Greek word for the number read as "ten thousand" in English." This has several problems:

• It defines a myriad as "a classical Greek word". But WP is not a dictionary, and in this case (unlike, say, Man (word)), the article is not about the Greek word, but the concept of 10,000 as a numerical unit, which is expressed using the English word "myriad" which is borrowed from Greek. cf. Use–mention distinction.
• "...word for the number read as 'ten thousand' in English" is an awfully wordy way of saying "...word for the number ten thousand". The "reading" of the number isn't really of interest here, just its value.

We can resolve these issues by writing simply "A myriad (etymology) is the number ten thousand, or a group of ten thousand things." Now it's true that that omits the fact that "myriad" is usually found in classical contexts (both Greek and Latin according to the OED), so we can add "...used generally in translations from Greek, Latin, or Chinese."

The etymology could be improved. The English word comes from post-classical Latin myriades, which comes from the Greek μυριάδες. This is indeed the plural of μυριάς, so the etymology should read "(< Late Latin < Ancient Greek μυριάδες, myriades, the plural of μυριάς, myrias)". (cf. OED, 3rd ed.).

The situation in Modern Greek is muddled a bit by the current description. I made some edits, but they were reverted.

Finally, in the spirit of being encyclopedic and not lexicographic, I'd think that we could merge the articles on myriad, lakh, and 10000 (number). After all, there is ample evidence that the concept of 10000, both as a specific, concrete number with its own name, and as a way of denoting "umpteen", appears in many languages, including the East Asian 萬 and the Hebrew רבבה. --Macrakis (talk) 00:44, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

There is probably room for improvement and I mainly reverted because I have often seen "myriad" in English translations of Asian Classics and the like. I probably shouldn't have blanket-reverted you. On your last point though, myriad is a special case because unlike the terms covered by other articles, in modern English usage it more often doesn't mean a specific number, just generally in the sense of beaucoups. So I'm not sure a merge is needed. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 02:21, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

OK, I've made a bunch of edits -- restoring the reference to translations from Chinese in the lead. Please take a look at the various changes and improve them further or discuss them here.

As for the lots-and-lots meaning vs. the 10,000 meaning, there are in fact several other number terms that are also used in a vague or indefinite way; I find it strange to cover the nuances of the East Asian treatment of 10,000 under "myriad" rather than 10,000. Compare, for example, 40. It seems ethnocentric to cover the vague sense of 10,000 under the lemma "myriad" just because it happens that English has a one-word name for that number, while we don't cover the vague sense of 40 in a special article, because English doesn't have a special name for it with the vague connotation (two-score?). --Macrakis (talk) 03:20, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't know that it's exclusive to translations of Greek, Latin and Chinese either. I think it may be used to translate terms in other languages like perhaps Japanese, Pali or Sanskrit? And maybe some others? And I would argue that this is the appropriate article to cover these terms because they are traditionally correlated specifically to the term "myriad" in translation. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 03:27, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, we can certainly add other languages as we find WP:RS for them. Actually, it would be nice if we could find an RS that explicitly states that "myriad" is often used in translations from Chinese (the OED is quite explicit about this), rather than just giving examples. Why would you think that translations from Pali or Sanskrit would use "myriad"? If I'm not mistaken, their unit is the lakh, which is 100,000. Interestingly, searching for "ten lakh" on Google Books finds a Japanese Buddhist text, where "ten myriad" presumably comes from "lakh" in the original Indic text translated into Japanese! [1]

It's also not self-evident that "myriad" is the most common translation of 萬/万 in English. For example, the Google Books search ["ten thousand" (萬|万)] gives 85 results, while ["myriad" (萬|万)] gives 63; ["ten thousand" chinese] gives 382k results, while ["myriad" chinese] gives only 120k. One case where "myriad" seems to be by far the more common translation is "myriad peaks" (576) vs. "ten thousand peaks" (38), but "thousand peaks" is even more common -- could it be that that is a looser translation of the same phrase? ... but it seems that 千峰 also exists in Chinese.... --Macrakis (talk) 04:42, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Uppercase/Lowercase

The article currently has:
"lower case letters did not exist in Ancient Greece [...] for example ${\stackrel {\delta \phi \pi \beta }{\mathrm {M} }}$"
in which the superscripted numerals are rendered in lowercase by the {{Greek numeral}} template. This seems quite inconsistent!! —DIV (194.193.146.160 (talk) 08:57, 3 January 2019 (UTC))

is technically the number ten thousand

What meaning of number is used here? It might be confused with the term numeral by readers --Backinstadiums (talk) 12:07, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree. I think there are multiple, better ways to word it. For example: "numeric quantity" or just "quantity". Stevebroshar (talk) 13:12, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Technically? Used in English almost exclusively?

WRT current intro: "Myriad (from Ancient Greek μυριάς, myrias) is technically the number 10,000 (ten thousand); in that sense, the term is used in English almost exclusively for literal translations from Greek, Latin or Sinospheric languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese), or when talking about ancient Greek numerals. More generally, myriad may be used in colloquial vernaculars to imply an indefinitely large number."

I wouldn't say that it's technically 10,000. I think the word is historically (etymologically) from a Greek word for 10,000. I guess some might call that a technical thing, but I wouldn't. More importantly, just bc a word has a historical association with a another word does not mean the current meaning is the same as the associated word. Meanings change over time and based on context.

I think the last sentence contradicts the first! Is myriad used almost exclusively for translation from Greek or is it used to imply an indefinite number? I assume the sentences contradict due to a bad edit.

...Oh, wait, I see what it's trying to say. I think it's trying to say that when translating Greek... the word myriad is used (almost exclusively) to mean 10,000. Took me way too long to figure that out. It's worded poorly.

I think the intent is that although myriad derives from the Greek word for the quantity 10,000, it is used in English to mean indefinitely large number yet at the same time, when translating from Greek... it means 10,000.

...I re-worked the intro. Stevebroshar (talk) 13:10, 28 December 2024 (UTC)