In either form - not used by many of us before very recent times.

Before I became involved with rewards, loyalty and marketing for a mortgage bank, the word Billion eluded me. In fact for at least the first year, or even 3 of the relationship – the proportion eluded me, and even where the comma’s were to go, mesmerized me. But I became used to the term, the size, even the commas, as in ...”oh another billion”.

And before this I remember that Carl Sagan used it often to describe the universe as if an alliteration ….“billions and billions and billions of years ago…”

Today more often we all use the word “billion” as a synonym for “bailout”. So we’ve become numb in sense to a new dimension – ginormus. Ginormous debt. Ginourmous loans. Ginourmous gifts. Even ginoumours screw-ups don’t seem to phase us anymore.

Staying close to home – next up for my comment…the almost, or maybe more than One Billion Dollar screw-up in Ontario’s digital health document strategy.

Globe & Mail June 17, 09

Excerpt from an interview with a senior executive of a large corporation about his travel habits…

Globe – What do you do during these flights?

Executive – It depends on the flight. I do lots of preparation work. I’m a planner by nature. I tend to do that last minute on the plane. I always catch a flick too.

3 things come to mind:
1. I’ve often had trouble citing an oxymoron – But.... "lots of preparation as a last minute planner"….I’ll hang onto this one.
2. Drop the oxy and think moron.
3. If it’s an 80 minute flight and the ‘flick” is 95 minutes…does he miss the flick and cram his last minute planning, or pay the pilot for a “go around”.

Oh, but for the words we all wish we could suck back in.