...
> Clearly the ls help and manual should instead say:
> "Size of space allocated for each file, in blocks"
>
> Perhaps with a notice in the manual further explaining potential for
> difference between the file size and size in blocks?

The description in "info coreutils ls" has more detail:
(and is usually referred to by the last paragraph of the man page)

`-s'
`--size'
     Print the disk allocation of each file to the left of the file
     name.  This is the amount of disk space used by the file, which is
     usually a bit more than the file's size, but it can be less if the
     file has holes.

     Normally the disk allocation is printed in units of 1024 bytes,
     but this can be overridden (*note Block size::).

     For files that are NFS-mounted from an HP-UX system to a BSD
     system, this option reports sizes that are half the correct
     values.  On HP-UX systems, it reports sizes that are twice the
     correct values for files that are NFS-mounted from BSD systems.
     This is due to a flaw in HP-UX; it also affects the HP-UX `ls'
     program.


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