dog paddle

Is 1,600,000,000,000 one trillion six hundred billion, or one thousand six hundred billions? The reason I am wondering is because that is a conservative estimate of the number of words of English spoken EVERY DAY. A word like race is used hundreds of thousands of times a day. The people who write dictionaries do an absolutely awesome job of guessing at what people mean and the associations that they make when they use or hear words. And I am sure that some of you will go on thinking that you know what race "really" means because you can open a dictionary and find "each of the major divisions of humankind, each having distinct physical characteristics." Others will be willing to accept that someone from the middle east is frequently distinct in apperance from someone from China but will then be wondering things like - "Gee how many races are there anyway?" -and - "If I look Dutch but have an aboriginie forfather what am I really?" - and - "How come northern "Chinese" look so different from southern "Chinese" - and - "Why is it that geneticists are saying the whole concept of race is nonsense when even my dictionary defines it...." Using a language is like swimming in mystery. If you never figure that out you'll be doing the dog paddle the rest of your life.