This is an example of the Americans corrupting the English language. What exactly is a Billion? Lets start with the Oxford Reference Dictionary, it describes a billion as a million million, which is 1,000,000,000,000. The American definition is a thousand million (1,000,000,000). I have no problem with the other definition if it is kept across the Atlantic where it belongs. We have a perfectly good, if underused word for a thousand million, a milliard.

I thought that it was American films that had caused the confusion until recently when the bastion of the English language, BBC news refers to government spending in the billions. This is incorrect use of language and it is confusing to the mathematically educated.