# How did "K" replace "G" to indicate $1000 (US)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [December 31, 2014, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624 "2014-12-31T15:48:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2014, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/21 "2014-12-31T20:49:39Z")
at one time kilo was abbreviated with a K.
depends on when you learned it and how nice your lawn is.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2014, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/22 "2014-12-31T20:52:00Z")
The capital K supposedly means 1024 instead of 1000.
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### Author:  [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2014, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/23 "2014-12-31T20:59:25Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> The capital K supposedly means 1024 instead of 1000.
I’ve only ever seen it written that way [with an “i” after it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_rate_units#Kibibit_per_second).
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### Author:  [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2014, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/24 "2014-12-31T21:05:14Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#):
>
> Pet-peeve time:
>
> At work I’m a pain in the ass when it comes to the correct usage of units. If a resistor is 10000 ohm, for example, I often see it written as
>
> 10KΩ
> 10K
> 10 KΩ
>
> All of these are wrong. Only this is correct:
>
> **10 kΩ**
>
> For completeness sake, the following are also correct:
>
> 10000 Ω
> 10000 ohm (_not_ 10000 Ohm)
> 10 kilohm
I’m with you. I’d never write Km (kilometer) any more than I’d write Mm (millimeter). The prefix is just supposed to be lowercase. The spacing thing bugs me too, but I’ve read enough grad student theses at this point that do this that I’ve given up bring the overly picky outside reader.
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2014, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/25 "2014-12-31T21:20:15Z")
In the 90’s, I worked as a print buyer and when I’d specify a certain number of thousands of circulars or envelopes, etc., I’d refer to thousands as “M”.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2014, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/26 "2014-12-31T22:47:32Z")
I’d bet every mystery and gangster book and movie (and radio and comic strip and…) used G for Grand from the 20s to 50s. At least. 100K is much newer. I’m 64 and I remember how weird it felt for one to replace the other.
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### Author:  [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2014, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/27 "2014-12-31T23:35:06Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#):
>
> I’m with you. I’d never write Km (kilometer) any more than I’d write Mm (millimeter). The prefix is just supposed to be lowercase. The spacing thing bugs me too, but I’ve read enough grad student theses at this point that do this that I’ve given up bring the overly picky outside reader.
Preach it.
I work in a government R&D lab. I use NIST’s [Guide for the Use of the International System of Units](http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/pdf/sp811.pdf) as the one and _only_ authority for rules governing the proper use of numbers and units.
In section 7.2 it states,
> [@](#):
>
> In the expression for the value of a quantity, the unit symbol is placed after the numerical value and **a space** is left between the numerical value and the unit symbol.
(Emphasis added.)
I’ve told the other engineers a thousand times that there should be a space between the numerical value and its symbol. But when I edit their reports I still see this over and over:
5VDC
18W
25ºC
10Ω
And don’t even get me started on [sentence spacing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing_in_language_and_style_guides). I am the _only_ one in our lab who uses one space after a period. :mad: When I receive a report to edit, I have to do a global replace to convert all the double spaces to single spaces. And then when I’m finished, I do a global replace to convert all the single spaces (after each period) to double spaces. (If I leave it with single spaces, all kinds of hell will rain down upon me. Trying to convince them of the error of their ways is futile - they were taught to insert two spaces after each period, and thus that’s the way it _must_ be.)
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### Author:  [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2014, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/28 "2014-12-31T23:45:24Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#):
>
> I’m with you. I’d never write Km (kilometer) any more than I’d write Mm (millimeter). The prefix is just supposed to be lowercase. The spacing thing bugs me too, but I’ve read enough grad student theses at this point that do this that I’ve given up bring the overly picky outside reader.
Mm (millimeter) was never correct.
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### Author:  [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2014, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/29 "2014-12-31T23:46:02Z")
To address the capital K thing, K means Kelvin, not kilo-.
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### Author:  [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2014, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/30 "2014-12-31T23:54:18Z")
> [@johnpost](#):
>
> Mm (millimeter) was never correct.
…because Mm means megameter.
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### Author:  [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2014, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/31 "2014-12-31T23:56:25Z")
People still might say “50 G’s.” But I’ve never seen anyone type it out like you would with 50k. To me, “50g” means you’re playing Final Fantasy.
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### Author:  [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/32 "2015-01-01T00:18:34Z")
I’ll submit that K = 1024 and k = something multipled by 10 to the 3rd power.
My understanding of Engineering Notations tells me that a number multiplied by 10 raised to a positive multiple of 3 has an upper case prefix abbreviation, and if it’s raised to a negative multiple of 3, it has a lower case prefix abbreviation. And the agreement to stick to this convention sent those conventioners dashing to the Greek alphabet to come up with the letter “mu” to symbolize the “micro” prefix because the lower case Greek letter “mu” looks like a lower case, Roman alphabet “u”.
I only remember G or Grand = $1,000 from old gangster movies, tv shows, or from people who picked up the reference from gangster entertainment.
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### Author:  [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/33 "2015-01-01T00:31:19Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#):
>
> I’m with you. I’d never write Km (kilometer) any more than I’d write Mm (millimeter). The prefix is just supposed to be lowercase. The spacing thing bugs me too, but I’ve read enough grad student theses at this point that do this that I’ve given up bring the overly picky outside reader.
> [@johnpost](#):
>
> Mm (millimeter) was never correct.
> [@scr4](#):
>
> …because Mm means megameter.
but K was used for kilo. m as a prefix always was milli, M always was mega.
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### Author:  [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/34 "2015-01-01T02:11:05Z")
> [@johnpost](#):
>
> Mm (millimeter) was never correct.
Right. That was my point. K (capitalized) has meaning all by itself. k (lowercase) as a prefix for kilo should be lowercase. That’s what I was taught anyway.
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### Author:  [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/35 "2015-01-01T02:28:18Z")
K replaced “degree Kelvin” °K in 1967.
K was used as the prefix and that was switched away from/
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### Author:  [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/36 "2015-01-01T02:44:48Z")
I was surprised the other week to hear after a long absence, large, meaning a thousand — with a gangster accent, laage.
“Youse owes me 10 laage, piker, so pay up or yous’ll be eaten’ breakfast tru a straw!”
I heard it on a current-season TV show. Maybe Sherlock, where it didn’t seem to belong. I’d hear it once in a while on the original Law and Order.
I wonder which is older, g’s or large.
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### Author:  [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/37 "2015-01-01T05:43:15Z")
And naturally, our master addressed this question, [years ago](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2044/whats-the-origin-of-grand-meaning-1-000).
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### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/38 "2015-01-01T05:55:54Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#):
>
> I work in a government R&D lab.
Ahh, a scientist.
There is a separate engineering standard for engineering drawings and specifications, and the ISO standard way to label 1000 ohm is “1K0” (one K zero). “One point eight ohm” is shown as “1R8”.
It is conventional to show the precision separately: “1%”, but in part numbers I do sometimes see some “scientific” notation: 1R000 would probably be a 0.1% part. Also, small values are generally shown as a fraction of an ohm: 0R47, 0R001. I don’t know what the standard says about that: it’s been 25 years since I was at school.
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### Author:  [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/39 "2015-01-01T06:08:22Z")
> [@marshmallow](#):
>
> People still might say “50 G’s.” But I’ve never seen anyone type it out like you would with 50k.
That’s been my experience, too. I used to hear it a lot more often, but G was slangy, and kinda gangster-ish, like calling a $100 bill a C-note. You wouldn’t type it out in a newspaper article, for example, but if someone said they owed 3 G’s to someone, you knew what they meant. It was about as slangy as using the word “large”, which in my experience was also usually gangster-style talk. Wikipedia says that large is used in banking. As I don’t work in the banking industry, I have no idea if that is true or not.
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
$1000 notes are occasionally referred to as “large” in banking (“twenty large” being $20,000, etc.) In slang, a thousand dollars may also be referred to as a “grand,” “G”, “K” (as in kilo), or a “stack.” (usage: “The repairs to my car cost me a couple grand.” Or: “The repairs to my car cost me a couple/couple of stacks.”)
[/QUOTE]
> **[Slang terms for money](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slang_terms_for_money#United_States)**
>
> Slang terms for money often derive from the appearance and features of banknotes or coins, their values, historical associations or the units of currency concerned. Within a language community, some of the slang terms vary in social, ethnic, economic, and geographic strata but others have become the dominant way of referring to the currency and are regarded as mainstream, acceptable language (for example, "buck" for a dollar or similar currency in various nations including Australia, Canada, Ne...
I’ve never personally heard the word “stack” used in that way.
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/40 "2015-01-01T07:13:15Z")
To echo what most of the posters have said, I am quite familiar with “G,” but it is always used in the plural. You could say “He pulls in 100K a year” or “He pulls in 100 Gs a year,” but I can’t recall ever hearing “He pulls in 100G a year.” It does, however, feel to me like the “100 Gs” usage has declined in popularity, being replaced by “100K.” My recollection is, growing up, that “Gs” was the more common usage in my neighborhood. I’ve also heard the aforementioned “stack” in reference to a thousand dollars, but I don’t remember that term being very common.
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