8.14.2007

That's a Lot of Money!

FOX News is reporting that a South Carolina inmate is suing NFL quarterback Michael Vick for $63,000,000,000 billion dollars for stealing his pit bulls, as well as for other infractions. That is an awful lot of money! Later on in the article, it reports that the inmate wants $63 billion dollars backed by gold and silver delivered to the gate of the prison.

Whoever wrote the story apparently does not know the difference between 63,000,000,000 billion and 63 billion. See, the lawsuit says he wants 63,000,000,000 billion dollars, not 63 billion dollars. That means he is actually seeking $63,000,000,000,000,000,000 (sixty-three billion billion dollars or sixty-three quintillion dollars)! I do not know if there are $63 quintillion dollars even in existence. Of course, I bet the inmate has little chance of winning any sort of lawsuit.

Furthermore, the FOX News article, but not the plaintiff's lawsuit, also misuses the dollar sign in their article. The put a dollar sign before the number and the word after the number. They need to pick one or the other, not both. If I say $1 dollar, that's just wrong. I should have written either $1 or 1 dollar. With both the dollar sign and the word dollars, the units being represented are dollars squared, and that makes absolutely no sense at all.

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