The Billion Dollar Question

So how much is a billion?

Answer: 1,000,000,000 (one thousand million)

Sub-plot: In American English a billion is 1,000,000,000. In British English a billion used to be, and technically still may be, 1,000,000,000,000 (one million million); but in practical usage British English now treats a billion the same as American English does: 1,000,000,000.

Nevertheless, a British billionaire is still worth more than an American billionaire (slightly more than twice as much at today’s rate of exchange).

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 6:56 am and is filed under Vocabulary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.