# 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:** 16
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/41 "2015-01-01T07:35:12Z")
> [@scr4](#):
>
> For what it’s worth, Webster’s says “grand” means “a thousand dollars”.
Webster’s hasn’t always kept current with regard to currency and coins. We have a copy of Webster’s Second Unabridged Dictionary; though originally published in the mid-1930, ours is a later version from the late 1940s. Even at that late date, the beautiful color plate accompanying the entry for “Coin” shows gold coins of many nations and denominations–eagles, sovereigns, Mexican ten-peso pieces, and several others that are almost forgotten today. By this time, most of those countries had long since stopped minting any kind of gold for general circulation.
Perhaps “grand” is somewhat like “bit”, still understood by many but rarely used in writing.
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/42 "2015-01-01T08:02:45Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#):
>
> Perhaps “grand” is somewhat like “bit”, still understood by many but rarely used in writing.
I think “bit” is far less understood then grand. I’d wager most people under a certain age couldn’t tell you how much a bit is (and even I had to look it up to make sure, because I wasn’t absolutely certain), while “grand” is, at least around my peers, still very commonly used, especially in expressions like “a couple of grand.” If it’s not used in writing much, that’s probably more a factor of it being slangy/colloquial more than anything, I’d think.
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### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/43 "2015-01-01T10:12:40Z")
Nerds.
I am old enough to remember “G’s,” but such of the younger generation that are online use “K” for one thousand all the time. Even years get labeled 2k14 & 2k15,
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### Author:  [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/44 "2015-01-01T12:46:58Z")
As in Y2K
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### Author:  [@Batfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batfish)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/45 "2015-01-01T12:47:12Z")
Grand and G’s are both slang. I don’t remember ever seeing them used in any official way, such as a newspaper article.
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### Author:  [@kferr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kferr)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/46 "2015-01-01T13:06:39Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#):
>
> … I’ve told the other engineers a thousand times that there should be a space between the numerical value and its symbol. …
So you’ve told them 1 ktimes? 😃
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### Author:  [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2015, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/47 "2015-01-01T13:10:07Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> The capital K supposedly means 1024 instead of 1000.
Back in the 90’s the capital K was officially defined as 1000 (or Kelvin). 1024 (2^10) became Ki (or Kibi).
The ruling was supposed to stop the confusion between (computer) engineers who wanted it to be 1024 and the bulk of the plebs, who assumed that it meant 1000. The confusion remains.
> [@](#):
>
> kibi- (Ki-)
> a binary prefix meaning 2^10 = 1024. This prefix, adopted by the International Electrotechnical Commission in 1998, was supposed to replace kilo- for binary applications in computer science. Thus 1024 bytes of storage is officially a kibibyte, not a kilobyte. However, computer professionals generally dislike this unit (they say it sounds like a cat food) so the ambiguity in the size of a kilobyte persists. The prefix is a contraction of “kilobinary.” The symbol Ki-, rather than ki-, was chosen for uniformity with the other binary prefixes (Mi-, Gi-, etc.).
[https://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/dictK.html](https://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/dictK.html)
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### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/48 "2015-01-08T11:02:00Z")
> [@pulykamell](#):
>
> I think “bit” is far less understood then grand.
But well known to finance types of a certain age: until “decimilisation” in 2000-2001, stocks were traded in 1/2 bit “ticks” (tick, as in ticker-tape, as in ticker-tape-parade).
The NYSE started trading with “bits”, 12.5 cents, and moved to 1/2 bits, 6.25 cents to allow smaller movements, then, as everything became computerised, pennies, (decimilisation) to allow smoother price changes and compatibility with the rest of the world.
> [@Huck Finn](#):
>
> …We got an old tin lantern, and a butcher knife without any handle, and a bran- new Barlow knife worth two bits in any store…
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### Author:  [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/49 "2015-01-08T16:28:46Z")
> [@Ranger\_Jeff](#):
>
> 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”.
Wait, what? Why would it matter if the Greek mu looks kinda like the letter “u”? They picked it because mu is the Greek equivalent of “m.”
> [@johnpost](#):
>
> but K was used for kilo. m as a prefix always was milli, M always was mega.
Or, sometimes, as with some capacitors, “M” is used for micro. It confused me the first time I saw it.
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/50 "2015-01-08T16:51:15Z")
> [@Melbourne](#):
>
> But well known to finance types of a certain age: until “decimilisation” in 2000-2001, stocks were traded in 1/2 bit “ticks” (tick, as in ticker-tape, as in ticker-tape-parade).
Interesting, I do remember “ticks,” but never knew their connection with bits.
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### Author:  [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/51 "2015-01-08T18:49:38Z")
> [@DrCube](#):
>
> It’s a nitpicky formatting issue that is important to some people. I have a teacher friend who complains whenever anybody says “a hundred and fifty dollars”, because “and” means “decimal point” and they should have said “one hundred fifty dollars”. :rolleyes:
I had one of those teachers. Never understood the notion that ‘and’ meant decimal point. To me that was wrong then and still wrong today, it means addition so one could say:
One hundred fifty dollars
or
One hundred and fifty dollars meaning $100+$50
If one wants to say $100.50 it would be
One hundred dollars and fifty cents
But there is no way to make the case that ‘One hundred and fifty dollars’ means $100.50
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/52 "2015-01-08T19:45:35Z")
> [@kanicbird](#):
>
> I had one of those teachers. Never understood the notion that ‘and’ meant decimal point. To me that was wrong then and still wrong today, it means addition so one could say:
> One hundred fifty dollars
> or
> One hundred and fifty dollars meaning $100+$50
>
> If one wants to say $100.50 it would be
> One hundred dollars and fifty cents
>
> But there is no way to make the case that ‘One hundred and fifty dollars’ means $100.50
Luckily, I never came across one of these teachers in my time, although I am familiar with it from others. I have no idea where it came from. The only thing that makes sense to me is it is somehow a misapplied rule for mixed numbers, where you do have the form “five and a half” and somehow it was carried over into decimals. While I have occasionally been “corrected” by others who grew up with this rule, I have _never_ in my life heard anyone say “five and five” for the number 5.5. I have heard “five dollars and fifty cents” for $5.50, but that “and” is there as a conjunction, not an implied decimal point.
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there is someplace/dialect where people do say “one hundred and one” to mean “100.1,” but I’ve yet to encounter it.
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### Author:  [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/53 "2015-01-08T21:27:09Z")
> [@johnpost](#):
>
> but K was used for kilo. m as a prefix always was milli, M always was mega.
> [@CurtC](#):
>
> Or, sometimes, as with some capacitors, “M” is used for micro. It confused me the first time I saw it.
the small printing needed to print a m or the letter mu would likely produce an illegible character on many caps.
also a Farad is huge and what you find are values of 10[sup]-12[/sup] to 10[sup]-3[/sup] F.
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### Author:  [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)
#### Post date: [January 9, 2015, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/54 "2015-01-09T12:50:48Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#):
>
> 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. …
How bout I slip you a finsky? (Said to a maître d’ in the old gangster movie “Ferris Bueller…”)
Which I always knew of as a “fin,” in some true old gangster movie. (Which comes from Yiddish “finf,”/“five,” BTW.
And, in real life, when I was feeling silly, talking about money, I (and others) would say “it cost about 3 G,” not “…G’s.” Interesting phenomenon.
Also, as is well known, in the modern Mafia it is referred to as a “Z,” or sometimes a “boz.”
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### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2015, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/55 "2015-01-12T05:28:34Z")
Or how about I slip you a suitcase? I just had to look up “2.5 lakh grama panchayats” because I was trying to work out if they were talking about WiFi.
Turns out they weren’t talking about WiFi. lakh is 100,000. “gram” is a villiage, there are about 250,000 of them in India (2.5 lakh). “panchayats” are the the local government people, “gram panchayats” are local government administrative regions.
And a suitcase is 1 lakh rupee – about the amount of 100 rupee notes required to fill a suitcase.
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### Author:  [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2015, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-k-replace-g-to-indicate-1000-us/708624/56 "2015-01-12T05:48:28Z")
> [@Keeve](#):
>
> A good place to look would be newspaper headlines. In the sixties, how might a newspaper have headlined the size of the crowd on New Year’s Eve in Times Square, or the year’s body count in Vietnam? Did they really not use the G?
No, I don’t think they did. I’m pretty sure that “G” or “grand” only ever meant a thousand _dollars_.
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