[plug] billion (was Unix Epoch: 1 billion seconds breakfast function.)

[Colin Muller]

On Mon, Sep 03, 2001 at 11:51:33AM +0800, John Knight wrote:
> Time for my usual rant of pedantry, but would this be an English or an 
> American billion? I've always been quite puzzled by this as according to the 
> dictionary, a billion is 10 to the power of 12 (a million millions) unless 
> you live in America or France where it is 10 to the power of 9 (a thousand 
> millions).
> 
> Why does everyone use the US billion even if modern dictionaries say that 
> it's 10 to the power of 12? I'm not trying to point out an error, this has 
> simply been puzzling me for years.

If the dictionaries don't reflect general usage, then the dictionaries
are broken - not the people.

Colin