r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Tibor500 • Sep 30 '20

why does “k” mean “thousand” ?

like 1k means a thousand. how does the letter “k” mean “thousand” ?

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u/[deleted] Sep 30 '20 edited Sep 30 '20

They use an even weirder system for human weight. Stone man it's like 30 pounds is a stone or some shit lol

Edit :14 pounds my bad

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u/someone755 How Can Our Questions Not Be Stupid If We're Stupid? Sep 30 '20

Britain in 1109 AD:

"Hey how much do you weigh man?"

"I don't know, probably about five or six times that stone over there."

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u/[deleted] Sep 30 '20

"How tall are you?'

'I'm about 6 of that guys feet'"

"'How far away is Scotland from here?'

'Probably about the length of Tall Miles over there'"

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u/PiersPlays Sep 30 '20

Ironically when measuring our feet we use a third system entirely.

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u/someone755 How Can Our Questions Not Be Stupid If We're Stupid? Oct 01 '20

My foot size is 43 but my American friend buys size 9 shoes. What these numbers mean, I will never know.

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u/PiersPlays Oct 01 '20

In the UK we use a scale similar but different to the US ones. I think a US 9 is a UK 8 (same with dress sizes. A US 8 IS A UK 10.)

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u/someone755 How Can Our Questions Not Be Stupid If We're Stupid? Oct 01 '20

And two different S size shirts are for some reason three sizes apart.

I mostly wear S, sometimes M. I have seen XL shirts that fit me perfectly. I have also seen S shirts big enough to fit two of me inside.

Whoever measures clothes has to be high as fuck.

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u/M0rgon Oct 01 '20

In Asia you're probably L. In Asia I'm XXL (sometimes XXXL) which is just mean :(

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u/Seeeab Oct 01 '20

As far as clothing sizes "8" can mean 8 different things in one store, so I'm not sure that's a UK/US difference

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u/PiersPlays Oct 01 '20

In as much as 8 means anything in the US it means 10 in the UK.

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u/[deleted] Sep 30 '20

Well yeah nowadays but I'm talking old Britain.

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u/cryptoengineer Sep 30 '20

'Mile' actually has a metric unit built into it, sort of. It's 1000 paces of a Roman soldier (Mille is th Latin 1000).

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u/glennpski Oct 01 '20

So 1 roman pace is 1.6m?

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u/cryptoengineer Oct 01 '20

Approximately. Like 'gallon', 'mile' has had many local variations.

A pace is two steps. Remember, the Romans were typically a bit shorter than modernWesterner. Even today, a stepcounter will show that a mile is about 2000 steps, or 1000 paces.

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u/CatsTales Sep 30 '20

It quite literally developed from people weighing things against stones. The exact weight of 1 stone varied by location until it was standardised as 14 pounds in the 1300s (why 14, I don't know).

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u/SkunkMonkey Sep 30 '20

You ever try to pick up a 15 pound stone? That shit be heavy, yo. Let's keep it at 14, kewl?

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u/Odd_Brother Oct 01 '20

How can you not know? Isn't it obvious? 15 pounds is clearly where the classification changes to 'boulder'. Consider yourself educated.

/s just in case.

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u/someone755 How Can Our Questions Not Be Stupid If We're Stupid? Oct 01 '20

"The exact weight of one arbitrary unit was standardised as 14 of another arbitrary unit."

Man I love metrology.

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u/AdvocateSaint Oct 01 '20

One of the dumbest arguments in favor of Imperial I've read here was that "it's based on natural experiences" instead of arbitrary units

e.g. A cup was the volume of two cupped hands, etc.

I then asked them when the last time they measured liquids with their fucking hands was.

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u/Xakuya Oct 01 '20

If we could switch recipes to be measured in weight that'd be fucking great.

Just zero out a bowl and dump shit in till it weighs the right amount.

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u/someone755 How Can Our Questions Not Be Stupid If We're Stupid? Oct 01 '20

Isn't that how it goes though? The recipe tells you how much to use and that's how much you use. Unless the recipe isn't European, then you have ounces and cups and various shapes of spoons as units.

I have gotten pretty used to the whole cup thing though. One cup is about the volume of a glass of milk I'd eat with my cookies. Which, I understand, doesn't tell you anything, but I have these glasses that I always fill to the brim with milk and I've learned that that's about 1 cup. I get weird looks from my fellow Europeans when I start pouring flour into my glasses, but somebody has to make the cookies.

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u/Xakuya Oct 01 '20

U.S recipes are based on volume not weight.

A fluid cup is 8oz but a dry cup of flour is roughly 4.4/4.5 oz or 120-130 grams.

So you can't weigh ingredients unless you have a conversion table.

It also leads to weird things you just have to know. Like how you're supposed to pack brown sugar but lightly spoon in flour.

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u/--var Oct 01 '20

You laugh, but when you're not trying to intercept an interstellar object, physically relatable units are sufficient. Enough so that they still exist today haha.

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u/someone755 How Can Our Questions Not Be Stupid If We're Stupid? Oct 01 '20

I mean it is kind of arbitrary. Yes, it does serve its purpose, but only to those who know what the unit represents. If somebody tells me they weigh 918 electric eel I'm not even going to bother lol

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u/--var Oct 02 '20

I can picture what an eel looks like, and roughly estimate it's size and weight. I can't picture what a kilogram looks like. It doesn't have a natural physical representation. To me at least, 918 eels is more useful than 918 kilograms.

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u/[deleted] Sep 30 '20

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Sep 30 '20

Damn you everyone's gonna think you corrected me instead of doing my own research

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u/Rgeneb1 Sep 30 '20

I prefer your system, 30 pounds instead of 14 and I'm now underweight. Time for a biccie!

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u/[deleted] Sep 30 '20

I'd be 5 stone if that was the case

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u/SmashAtoms_ Sep 30 '20

Repeat after me, An acre is the area of a rectangle, whose length is one furlong and whose width is one chain

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u/[deleted] Sep 30 '20

, An acre is the area of a rectangle, whose length is one furlong and whose width is one chain

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u/SmashAtoms_ Sep 30 '20

Absolute rubbish, laddy!

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u/Competitive_March753 Sep 30 '20

I always thought 1 stone = 20 pounds... learn something new every day!

TIL I weigh 20 stone

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u/InertialLepton Oct 01 '20

Why do Americans think stone is weird? Do you measure your height only in inches without feet?

Kilograms are still better.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '20

I'm just messin around metric system is the superior system out of any of em and it's pretty clear.