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Actually, I'm changing the kitty litter and have been stopping off here between stages for some spirit-lifting laughter. The origins of K meanwhile were as a hipster affectation from what would later become known as the world of IT. You never saw it, then you started seeing it, then you started seeing it everywhere. No Greece. No metric system. Just pop-leakage of a term that the "early adopters" didn't really understand to begin with.
In the brokerage industry, the use of M for 1,000 and MM for 1,000,000 dates back prior to the mid 80's when I first came across it. Reason was probably for clarity. Fewer mistakes than if one were writing up a trade ticket and had to stop and count the zeros.
Nowadays, in newspaper and internet headlines at least "M" means million. As in "Player X signs $50M contract" or "IRS spends $2M on Champagne" and so on.
M=1,000 comes from Roman numerals and therefore I suppose MM for a million is M times M makes sense.
C=100 also from Roman numerals and used in the slang term "C note" for a $100 bill (old-fashioned now).
K=1,000 from the Greek kilo meaning thousand. Could be kilometers, kilobytes, or kilo-dollars!
G=1,000 (short for Grand) and only(?) used when talking about money, not shares of stock or running distance.
It was not some sudden pop-fascination with Hellenic culture and history that put K into the place of G. It wasn't even called IT yet, but that's the culture from which the usage was taken.
No, because it was in use well before computers were a thing. As the PP said, kilo is thousand.
Actually, I'm changing the kitty litter and have been stopping off here between stages for some spirit-lifting laughter. The origins of K meanwhile were as a hipster affectation from what would later become known as the world of IT. You never saw it, then you started seeing it, then you started seeing it everywhere. No Greece. No metric system. Just pop-leakage of a term that the "early adopters" didn't really understand to begin with.
So you're basically saying you adopted the term to sound hip without knowing what it means? Well, I could look it up for you, but all my references predate the internet so there are no hyperlinks -- they're real books.
No, because it was in use well before computers were a thing. As the PP said, kilo is thousand.
In popular usage (the context of this sub-thread), a kilo is about 2.2 pounds -- usually of an illicit substance. That of course DOES come from the metric system that is used in almost every country that produces those illicit substances in bulk.
So you're basically saying you adopted the term to sound hip without knowing what it means? Well, I could look it up for you, but all my references predate the internet so there are no hyperlinks -- they're real books.
If you had read and understood the thread, you would have known full well that this is nothing remotely resembling what I am "basically saying".
M=1,000 comes from Roman numerals and therefore I suppose MM for a million is M times M makes sense.
No, it actually doesn't make sense, as while M in Roman numerals is equivalent to one thousand, MM is equivalent to two thousand. Not one million. Like zero, the Romans had no symbol for one million. Later thinkers tried to expand upon the Roman system by writing a bar above a symbol (essentially, an overscore) to mean "times 1,000". Hence V-bar would have been five thousand, X-bar would have been ten thousand, and M-bar would have been one million. Usage of these was never more than extremely uncommon, in part because the more useful Hindu/Arabic numerals came to replace Roman numerals entirely.
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