Now everybody knows that here in Europe we have monocycles, bicycles, tricycles etc. with one, two and three wheels respectively.
In US they have monocylcles, bicycles, tricycles etc. with one wheel and trainers, two wheels and trainers, three wheels and trainers etc.
Very logical 
Well, that’s all well “spoken”, I guess, but I think we should all get off our epicycles and recycle, or at least re"tire" this sadly abraded thread before we go over the handlebars.
Ray
Topi wrote:
Actually, we don’t have monocycles (except in organic chemistry). We have unicycles.
Of course icycles form on the Internet when threads get off-topic.
Ray
RM’s point about bicycles was this:
Using the formula where (p*3)+ 3, then an equivalent system for cycle wheel determination might be p + 1. A unicycle would have 1 + 1 = 2 wheels. A bicycle would have 2 + 1 = 3 wheels. Etc. Okay, it’s a stretch, it’s just showing that if the prefix is to designate something to do with a numeral count, it is nice to have that numeral count actually match the meaning of the prefix.
From meriam-webster’s online dictionary, the word million comes ultimately from “from Old Italian milione, augmentative of mille thousand, from Latin”. In other words, the “M” in milion comes from thousand, not one. So what we have in the American system is:
10^3 = Thousand
10^6 = Million = mille thousand = thousand thousand
10^9 = Billion = (mille)^2 thousand = (thousand)^2 thousand
10^12 = Trillion = (thousand)^3 thousand
10^15 = Quadrillion = (thousand)^4 thousand
etc.
Well, would you look at that? The exponents line up perfectly with Billion, Trillion, etc. after all.
This in no way makes us a more perfect union (any more than that other Italian, Amerigo, did).
10^(31). .thousand. . .“mille”
10^(32). .million . . .“big mille”
10^(33). .billion . . .“two”
10^(34). .trillion. . .“three”
10^(3*5). .quadrillion .“four”
etc.
. . . ^ . . . . . . . . . .^
. . . ^ . . . . . . . . . .^
Arrows point to offset of numeral names wrt factor of power.
Give up!
Ray