When my partner Sue Wilson and I began doing the morning show together last summer, we started learning many things about one another quickly. You can't help it when you're paying attention, and in the same room together for 4 hours every morning.
One of many fun things we share, is the silly practice of exaggeration. We find each other saying things like, "It's a hundred below zero outside," or "it's ten thousand degrees today, humidity's five hundred percent." Sometimes it spills over to money, "George Clooney makes a jillion dollars a year," things like that. It's part of each of us individually and together on the show. It's kinda fun.
With that said, I noticed that when people exaggerate in speech, they use words like, million, ten thousand, a jillion, a bezillion or some other fun sounding word that fits that they just made up on the spot. I've never heard anyone use ..trillion. And now you can. Because finally, at last, it's in play!
This week Congress passed the stimulus, or recovery bill and now it's reality. We're spending a trillion dollars. That's a lot of money. How much is it? I literally have no idea. I don't think anyone really does.
How do I feel about it? I don't know, never spent a trillion dollars before. I don't think I've ever exaggerated a trillion dollars before in speech, and I've done my share of exaggerating. Using trillion just seemed too over the top! I've said million dollars a number of times. I think I've used a billion dollars a few times in extreme emergency exaggeration situations, but I don't think I've ever played the trillion card. This is all very sudden for me, and I've had no time to prepare. I've been caught with my numbers down.
All these years, million has been hogging all the good exaggeration slots, but I feel million has had it's day, and now we're skipping right over billion and going to trillion. You gotta feel bad for billion, it's been waiting all these years to get it's day in the exaggerational sun, and it's not gonna happen. Clearly, trillion is the new million, and is here to stay.
This trillion business is going to be with us a while too. It'll run right through our speechy exaggerationous society for a good many years, only one day to be replaced by .....zillion.....(I don't even know if that's a number, but it's sounds like one.) And zillion could be a scary one, because I think the next thing after a trillion is quadrillion.....and using history as our guide, we'll give quadrillion the billion treatment skip right over it and go to zillion. Which also is frightening, because zillion begins with a "z," where do you go from there?
Any way you slice it, a trillion is a lot of anything. It's like ten thousand, million, billion or something like that, although that may be an exaggeration. And as Sue always tells me in jest, "I've told you a million ..er.....oops a trillion times quit exaggerating."
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Perhaps what you and Sue need is for congress to pass you an exaggeration stimulation package, with plenty of pork. A couple of honey baked hams and some ribs.
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