More confusion......

Bob Wright

Hawkeye
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Jun 24, 2004
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Memphis, TN USA
A recent spot on TV advertised a casino where one could win $5 G. Now Nita and I were well familiar with "G" representing thousand from George Raft who demanded 10 G protection money.

So now, one thousand may be represented by "G" while the older proper term was "M" from the Roman numeral. And baby boomers have adopted "K" for the thousand quantity. Examples:

"Pistol primers @ $30 M"

"Gamblers could win $5 G"

"This car is priced over $55 K"



Bob Wright
 
And in some gangster movies, thousand is “large.” For example if the interest on a loan from a loan shark is $3,000. In the movie they might say: “The juice is 3 large.”

I don’t know how common it is in real life though. I’ve not seen the “M” like you point out. But have seen the “K” representing thousand.
 
I wonder if anyone in the US used K as a substitute for 1000 before the government decided to indoctrinate the citizenry into the metric system?

That has resulted in a mess where, vehicles for instance, have standard and metric fasteners. Not to mention newer ones like Torx.
 
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We can ditch any and all Roman numerals eg. M forever as far as I’m concerned.
G was just slang for the slang Grand for meaning a thousand dollars. Back when a thousand dollars really meant something.
K is an abbreviation for kilo which derived from the metric system meaning a thousand which most of the world uses. Which is fine with me. Although I miss when a 5 liter engine was a 307 cu. in. small block. It doesn’t bother me at all to buy a 750 ml bottle of bourbon instead of a fifth.
 
"k" is the abbreviation for "kilo", which means 1,000.
1,000 meters is a kilometer (about 0.6 miles)
1,000 watts is a kilowatt
1,000 grams is a kilogram (about 2.2 pounds)
and so forth....
 
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