Billion

[Guy Steele <cbmvax!uunet!THINK.COM!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!gls>]

   Date:         Mon, 17 Feb 1992 17:45:28 +0000
   From: And Rosta <ucleaar%UCL.AC.UK@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu>

   Edmund Grimley-Evans <dfkihueg@DE.UNI-SB.RZ>
   > You didn't really go and gloss a Lojban gismu with the translation
 "billion",
   > did you? I mean that is really silly! In Britain billion usually means 1E12
   > (except when referring to sums of money in currencies other than Italian
   > lire, Yugoslav dinar,...) quite apart from the use of billion in other
   > European languages...

   I believe that billion is invariably used for 1,000,000,000. I never
   hear of milliards. I may of course be continually misinterpreting
   _billion_, but if I am then so are hundreds of thousands of others.

I've noticed the BBC and other European sources c arefulkly
speaking of "N thousand millions" to avoid the problem.