What does "the B-word" mean?

[zeonis]

In the following paragraph, I don't understand the meaning of the B-word.

"We’d gone from $69 million in fiscal year 1987 to $159 million in 1988 to $257 million in 1989. Hundreds of millions were great, but with sales nearly doubling every year, it wasn’t so crazy to start thinking about the B‑word.

This is Dell's fast growth in sales. So I think that the B-word is not what we usually think, like vulgar words, b**ch and bas**rd, etc.
Could anybody help me to understand the meaning of the sentence?

 

[emsr2d2]

They've gone from sales in the millions, to sales in the tens of millions, to sales in the hundreds of millions. They're now starting to think that sales might reach a billion dollars. The "B-word" is "billion".

 

[Tarheel]

You meant to say:

It's about Dell's fast growth in sales.

And now you know what logic tells you the B-word has to be.

 

[Skrej]

We use phrases like 'the F-word' or the 'B-word' as a euphemism for a word we don't want to say.

We sometimes do this to avoid directly using profanity, but in this case, it's more like avoiding a possible jinx.

In a similar vein, the Jewish faith has a prohibition against writing out the name 'God' completely, so you'll sometimes see 'G-d'.

These are all done for different reasons, but still have basically the same idea -use a substitute or altered term when you don't wish to use the real word.

 

[Glizdka]

The Jewish faith has a prohibition against writing out the name 'God' completely, so you'll sometimes see 'G-d'.

It was cleverly used in Rappin' for Jesus, a cringy video of two elderly Christians rapping in a youth outreach program, unknowingly using extremely offensive words, trusting they were being dope.

Jesus Christ is my n*gga. He's the son of the original G. And he was sent to Earth to elucidate the way that we should be.

The original G has a double meaning here. It means both God and gangsta.

 

[5jj]

a cringy video

That was embarrassing!

 

[Tdol]

That's me cured of my atheism.

 

[probus]

I too am an atheist. Indeed it's my belief that all religions have done and continue to do great harm. However, I like country music and a lot of it is Christian, so I just have to put my beliefs aside for the sake of the music.

And there is this.

 

[Tdol]

I love country music. But those two are not quite as good as Emmylou Harris.

 

[Tdol]

I didn't realise things were that bad for us until I watched your video.

 

[Glizdka]

Speaking of using "[letter]-word", there's an old TV series The L Word about the lives and loves of a group of lesbians in Los Angeles. The title is meant to symbolically show that the women had to hide their identity from society because back then homosexualism was still taboo. Now, people are much more open about it.

 

[probus]

Not homosexualism. I've never encountered that word. Use homosexuality.

 

[Glizdka]

Not homosexualism. I've never encountered that word. Use homosexuality.

Oops! A big faux pas on my part. I meant homosexuality, of course.

I'll be crawling back to that hole underground where I live.

 

[probus]

Don't feel bad Gliz. We all make little errors in languages that are not our mother tongue. Understandability is the most important thing and we all knew what you meant.