// Verbal inflation // 04.03.09
The speed of verbal inflation is staggering. Most of us still use the word 'millionaire' to describe someone of enormous wealth. It is not long ago that the word 'billion' began creeping into the lexicon of everyday politics. In the past it was generally used as a loose, non-specific way of conveying a sense of scale, bordering on the fantastical (as in "a billion stars in the heavens"). But hardly have we grown used to the idea of the billionaire when the word 'billion', relatively speaking, has begun to lose some of its power, displaced by the word 'trillion'.
One billion is equal to 1000 million; One trillion is equal to 1000 billion
A million seconds is 11 days.
A billion seconds is around 32 years.
And a trillion is 32,000 years.
The speed of verbal inflation is staggering. Most of us still use the word 'millionaire' to describe someone of enormous wealth. It is not long ago that the word 'billion' began creeping into the lexicon of everyday politics. In the past it was generally used as a loose, non-specific way of conveying a sense of scale, bordering on the fantastical (as in "a billion stars in the heavens"). But hardly have we grown used to the idea of the billionaire when the word 'billion', relatively speaking, has begun to lose some of its power, displaced by the word 'trillion'.
One billion is equal to 1000 million; One trillion is equal to 1000 billion
A million seconds is 11 days.
A billion seconds is around 32 years.
And a trillion is 32,000 years.
