When did Gs become Ks? (definition, amount, calculation, electronic)
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I first noticed "k" being bandied about to mean "thousand dollars" in the 1980's in classified job ads. That was during the first wave of home computer popularity and most people knew "k" means 1,000 (actually as someone pointed out it means 1,024 when talking about bytes).
I always thought of "G" as being criminal slang, or at least coming from criminal slang. Bank robbers and kidnappers were always talking about "100 grand" this and "50 grand" that, at least in movies!
I was born in 1960 and became an IT professional in 1983.
I saw the term in ads as early as 1972. Lowered the cost of the ad slightly. A logical progression from the 60;s, when landlord speak would advertise a rental as having w/w cpt rather than pay extra for writing out wall to wall carpets.
This, our systems recognize 10m and 10mm and thousands and millions for order entry but not 10k
You are correct that K was not used in brokerage that I ever saw (worked institutional, where trades of 1,000 bonds or 1,000,000 shares was not unusual), but yes on salaries, which as I have said elsewhere, I first saw in 1972 employment ads.
It started with people who wanted to appear tech-savvy by flippin' the lingo around. It doesn't really make much sense of course, since 1K = 1,024, not 1,000. Luckily, megs and gigs haven't emigrated so much and are still pretty much stuck in their native land.
LOL that cracks me up! I have an electronics background, and I certainly hope they never use "gig"
I've never seen grand shortened to G and written like that. If written it has always been 500 grand, 500 large, 500 stacks...
That makes me think it is a typo, because 500k is the way to write it even amongst the gangstas and hustlas.
On the Sporanos, there was an episode 1000 was referred to as a box of ziti, in reference to a poker game. If someone was down 20 boxes of ziti, that meant they were down $20,000
On the Sporanos, there was an episode 1000 was referred to as a box of ziti, in reference to a poker game. If someone was down 20 boxes of ziti, that meant they were down $20,000
Wasn't that because they thought that the place may have been bugged and they didn't want to be recorded talking about money ?
Gangster speak ?
Last time I looked, metric distances came in thousands. 10K =10,000 and in a 10K run. Not everything is rooted in tech.
The use of K is. But as I so plainly noted earlier, you can always just pretend that the usage actually arose from within failed US metrication initiatives in the 1970's rather than from popularization of geek-speak in the 1990's. That's not what actually happened, but again, what would it matter.
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.
That's a rather arcane little technical niche you're appealing to. The much older and more general rule would be that doubling a letter pluralizes what it stands for, as in pp. 45-49, or in JJ. Kennedy and Kagan concurring. And of course, MMI: A Space Odyssey would make sense. But not if MMI were somehow taken to mean one million and 1.
That's a rather arcane little technical niche you're appealing to. The much older and more general rule would be that doubling a letter pluralizes what it stands for, as in pp. 45-49, or in JJ. Kennedy and Kagan concurring. And of course, MMI: A Space Odyssey would make sense. But not if MMI were somehow taken to mean one million and 1.
And you attempting to applying any use k to tech isn't niche? Lulz
Wasn't that because they thought that the place may have been bugged and they didn't want to be recorded talking about money ?
Gangster speak ?
Most likely. Now that I think about it, the character Michael was on the telephone with the character Tony Soprano and they were discussing extension of credit to a poker game player who was losing and already had borrowed 10 or 20 boxes of ziti.
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