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.
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.
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,
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
