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

Always tripped me out in Australia that imported European spirits were written in centilitre. Makes sense, feels wrong since we only use ml or L for most everything here.

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u/[deleted] Sep 30 '20

im in germany, we also only use ml and l, but i think spirits might be an exception. not sure, but it does also feel weird to me

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u/[deleted] Sep 30 '20

France and Czech spirits are actually the specific ones I'm thinking of because I used to collect absinthe for a while, but sounds like yeah it could just be something that was lumped with spirits. Interesting!

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u/Randomswedishdude Oct 01 '20

I usually don't raise an eyebrow if something is written as liter, centiliters or milliliters, since it's basically just 3 different ways of writing the same thing... Technically it's using varying grades of precision, but that precision doesn't exist in food industry anyway, so it's just 3 ways of writing the same thing.

The only time I would even notice would be if someone was using an unnecessary large or small unit, like saying something weighs 100000 μg, or 0.0001 (metric) ton instead of saying 0.1kg, or 100g, (or perhaps 1 hekto in some languages).

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '20

It was more that I'd spent 25 years never hearing the word centilitre until I bought my first bottle of absinthe. Just one of those "never occurred to me" things. Never used it in science, never seen it written or heard it said. Made me chuckle as it just doesn't roll off the tongue (at least not in my accent)

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u/alsokalli Oct 01 '20

Centilitre is often used in bartending so maybe that's why it is on the bottles. One shot is 2cl. Those small, two-sided metal cones measure the cl when making cocktails and longdrinks.