> It would seem easier to just use the first letter of million, billion, etc., words which are known by most everyone. English is in the minority that uses sh

> It would seem easier to just use the first letter of million, billion, etc., words which are known by most everyone. English is in the minority that uses short-scale, the majority of "everyone" uses long-scale, and would therefore assume a "billion" is 10^12, not 10^9 like you would. (Which is why you got shot down by the grandparent, the metric prefixes are globally unambiguous, your suggestion is completely English-centric)