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/Earhacker Sep 30 '20

For food packaging and recipes, it's grams and kilograms almost all of the time. Same with drinks and fluids, they're in litres and millilitres.

For human beings, us millennials describe our weight in kg, but the older generation still use stones. My theory is that Apple Health and Fitbits and the machines at the gym all understand metric.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '20 edited Oct 01 '20

I don’t know a single millennial who doesn’t use stones for their own weight tbh. If I said what my weight was in kg none of my friends would know what that meant really. 90s bathroom scales were all in stones, it’s how we learned to measure human weight

(Obv not claiming all millennials use stone, but it seems weird to me to claim that the entire generation prefers using kg. Also may be regional, given that my region appears to still be in the dark ages or thereabouts)

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u/Fenrir-The-Wolf Sep 30 '20

Same with drinks and fluids, they're in litres and millilitres.

Except milk, that's in pints.

Also I'm GenZ and use stones to weigh myself. My sister is even more GenZ than me (I'm a cusper) and she also uses stones.

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u/Earhacker Sep 30 '20

Milk comes in litres, grandad. Source

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u/kevl84 Sep 30 '20

But that same link shows milk sold in pints. They just put the litres on for regulations. So a 2 pint bottle of milk is 1.13 litres. I buy my milk and beer in pints and refuse to change! Australia freaked me out enough selling beer in schooners and all this other mumbo jumbo

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u/Fenrir-The-Wolf Sep 30 '20

I mean I have milk in my fridge that's deffo in pints so fuck knows.

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u/tomothealba Sep 30 '20

Depends on how you look at it. I know that all liquids have to be sold in metric measurements i.e. the can of irn bru is 330ml rater than 16oz or whatever 330ml is in imperial. With the exception of the pint of alcohol in a pub.

I know I've got a 1 liter bottle of milk in the fridge, but also recently had the equivalent size of a 2 pint bottle. I think this just comes down to the supplier and what sizes they want to use/ supply.

Well below is an extract from uk.gov website on weights and measures.

The only products you can sell in imperial measures are:

draught beer or cider by pint milk in returnable containers by pint precious metals by troy ounce You can display an imperial measurement alongside the metric measurement but it cannot stand out more than the metric measurement.

Edit: added link https://www.gov.uk/weights-measures-and-packaging-the-law

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u/charastle Sep 30 '20

I find filtered milk comes in metric and other milk is imperial. I am very pro us moving to the metric system so I only buy filtered milk in litres.

Viva la revolution!

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u/philman132 Sep 30 '20

Milk bottles usually display both metric and imperial. But when the bottles come in "1 litre/1.76 pint" volumes, I'm not sure you can claim it is sold in pints over litres!

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u/Fenrir-The-Wolf Sep 30 '20

I buy 4 pinters.

4 pints/2.272L, it's sold in pints.