Hi Evan,

Might this have been based on the difference between dollars and pounds? For example 1 pound is equal to (at this point in time) $2.20 canadian. If you had 1,000,000 canadian dollars you would be a millionare. A person in the U.K. however would have 454,546 pounds.

Not sure if this was the basis but theres economics 101 :-)

>I heard a question on Jeopardy last week. The implication was the North Amercians have different definition of "billion" than the Brits.
>
>The North Amercian definition of a billion is one thousand million.
>
>1,000,000 <--- million
>1,000,000,000 <---- billion
>1,000,000,000,000 <---- trillion
>
>Wait... maybe it was "trillion" that was mentioned. Either way, could appreciate any comments on this, especially from the UK.
>
>P.S. I would consider a "trillion" a very non-standard term to start with (at least in Canada). It seems to be the domain of 12 year old boys ("My dad is a trillion times stronger than your dad") and economists ("The debt is 1.3 trillion").