7,000 Million Served

I’m not referring to a McDonald’s billboard[1] but to the global population milestone[1] that will be reached on this planet at some point during this year! How Earth can sustain 7,000 million human beings, I do not know! What I do know is how to talk about number amounts, like millions.

Ironically, when there is a digit before a number amount, the amount is singular:

The authorities estimated 5 thousand protesters at the march.

I dropped a dozen eggs at the supermarket.

There is a 2 billion to 1 chance of winning the lottery.

On the other hand, when there is no digit before a number amount, the amount is plural:

There were thousands of protesters at the march.

Dozens of eggs fell to the ground.

The universe is filled with trillions of stars.

Hopefully, out of all the millions of planets in the universe, we will discover another one like Earth that we can inhabitat before ours is destroyed!

[1] valla publicitaria, [2] hito