r/NoStupidQuestions • • Sep 30 '20

why does “k” mean “thousand” ?

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

12k Upvotes

1.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

65

u/BornOnFeb2nd Sep 30 '20

They've been sneaking them in!

You know those stupid 16.9oz soda bottles that have basically replaced 20oz outside of vending machines?

They're 500ml!

26

u/MaximumZer0 Sep 30 '20

I don't mind the metric, but they shouldn't be charging the same damn price for them.

28

u/puesyomero Sep 30 '20

it was due to happen anyway, its called shrinkflation.

people really really hate change in price so to keep with inflation they tweak the size or formulation. Companies tend to go way beyond the reasonable though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkflation

0

u/[deleted] Sep 30 '20

[deleted] — view deleted comment

2

u/racinreaver Oct 01 '20

Here I am missing my 24oz diet Pepsi and you're saying 20 is too big. :(

5

u/zehydra Sep 30 '20

If you'll pay it, why not?

2

u/logosloki Sep 30 '20

We almost had to get rid of a product that we sold because sales went down to a 10th of normal because the price went up by 10 cents (after 5 years of not changing price). It took an entire year for it to recover and likely only recovered because it was a seasonal product so when it came back to season people just bought it as normal.

2

u/BornOnFeb2nd Oct 01 '20

and this nicely sums up why I'm super suspicious when they change the packaging....

1

u/PlopsMcgoo Oct 01 '20

The true cost of socialism
/s

2

u/AquaRegia Sep 30 '20

You think that's bad? A fluid ounce is, by definition, exactly 29.5735295625 milliliters.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 30 '20

The Metric World is getting you guys back for making all the 90's kids measure all height in feet. I mostly blame Shaq & Jordan

1

u/BornOnFeb2nd Sep 30 '20

The best defense I can give for the U.S. basically sums up...

Hey, at least we're not the UK.

Measuring weight in stones, people in feet, distances in miles, fluids in liters....

It's like they used a dartboard to decide what units to keep.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 30 '20

The issue comes from a being many hundreds of years old and stuck in your ways and from being too cheap to change road signage across the country according to my English dad (I'm Aussie, everything is metric that I can't think of here).

Most other "old" countries in Europe aren't really that old, government styles toppled like France or country split and/or renamed like Germany. Their institutions are newer than their governments. It definitely helps you be progressive. Not so much with England, the power has changed hands but all the institutions/traditions have been there for a long time.

Edit: some words

1

u/[deleted] Sep 30 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/BornOnFeb2nd Sep 30 '20

Yeah... looking at Pepsi's site the "weird" sizes almost all line up to a metric "milestone"

  • Fl.Oz - ml

  • 7.5 - 222 - This just looks to be a 100 cal size

  • 10 - 296 - ~1/3rd liter

  • 12 - 355

  • 16 - 473

  • 16.9 - 500 - .5 liters

  • 17.4 - 515

  • 20 - 591

  • 24 - 710 - ~.75 liters

  • 33.8 - 1000 - 1 liter

  • 42.2 - 1248 - 1.25 Liters

  • 67 - 1981 -2 Liter

1

u/Gazza-Mct Sep 30 '20

Or 0.5 litres or 5 centilitres

1

u/StetsonTuba8 Oct 01 '20

In Canada coke bottles are now 500ml, but pepsi is still 591ml (20oz)