Jakarta –
While shopping, sometimes you can find prices written with numbers behind them embedded with the letter ‘K’. Call it 10K, 200K, 50K. But do you know what the ‘K’ behind that number means?
The letter ‘K’ is simply a substitute for a thousand or three 0’s when mentioning a price or amount. Then, why can ‘K’ have that meaning?
Quoted from the Merriam-Webster website, the unit ‘K’ stands for kilo. The kilo is used as a unit of measurement in the International System of Units, or SI (Système international d’unités).
For example, in measuring distance, 1 kilometer equals 1,000 meters. As for measuring weight, 1 kilogram equals 1,000 grams.
The word kilo comes from the Greek ‘chilioi’ which means thousands, used to express many or plural. The use of ‘K’ as an abbreviation for thousands dates back to at least the mid-1940s.
The first to adapt this term was Antoine Lavoisier’s research group in 1975. Then it was introduced by the French metric system in 1979.
Then this counting system began to be adopted by many until now we can find it in the price of goods and the number of followers of social media accounts.
The use of the letter K to represent thousand certainly has many advantages. In addition to shortening the writing, it can also save space. Some examples of using the letter K to abbreviate a large number with too many zeros.
Not only to denote price, the unit ‘K’ is also used in terms of technology. One of them is used to denote image resolutions such as 2K and 4K. 2K resolution means 2,560 x 1,440, while 4K means 3,840 x 2,160 in pixels.
(eds/eds)
2023-08-19 07:15:03
#Curious #Abbreviation #Thousand #Origins
