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Previous Thread Next Thread Print Thread Page 1 of 3 1 2 3 Grand #88732 12/05/02 04:10 PM Joined: Sep 2001 Posts: 6,296 Piedmont Region of Virginia, U... W Wordwind OP Carpal Tunnel OP Wordwind Carpal Tunnel W Joined: Sep 2001 Posts: 6,296 Piedmont Region of Virginia, U... Five grand would be five thousand dollars. How did grand come to be a monetary designation? And: Do we have any comparable words for a hundred thousand, a million, and higher? Since we're iced in here at the farm, we're watching a gangster movie and one of the gangsters was talking about the number of grands they owed another gangster. Copy Link to Clipboard Share Post on Facebook Share Post on Twitter Re: Grand #88733 12/05/02 04:14 PM Joined: Mar 2000 Posts: 6,511 lower upstate New York AnnaStrophic Carpal Tunnel AnnaStrophic Carpal Tunnel Joined: Mar 2000 Posts: 6,511 lower upstate New York I'm curious, too. I think the G in "grand" comes from the G in, giga, maybe? I'm sure one of the scholars here will fill us in. Meanwhile, I'm glad you haven't lost power. I complain about the snow here, but ice storms are much, much worse... Copy Link to Clipboard Share Post on Facebook Share Post on Twitter Re: Grand #88734 12/05/02 04:17 PM Joined: Dec 2000 Posts: 144 London, UK R rkay member rkay member R Joined: Dec 2000 Posts: 144 London, UK I don't know about comparable words for higher values, but if you go lower, you get 'a pony' meaning £25- and 'a ton' meaning £100- (or 100mph as in 'doing over the ton') Also, my Collins dictionary suggests that grand comes from the Latin 'grandis' and dates back to the C16. Copy Link to Clipboard Share Post on Facebook Share Post on Twitter Re: Without Power #88735 12/05/02 04:20 PM Joined: Sep 2001 Posts: 6,296 Piedmont Region of Virginia, U... W Wordwind OP Carpal Tunnel OP Wordwind Carpal Tunnel W Joined: Sep 2001 Posts: 6,296 Piedmont Region of Virginia, U... Any minute now...the lights are beginning to flicker...we'll be without power, but do have a generator. I checked AHD and MW online, but only read about grand as a slang term and saw nothing about etymology. Copy Link to Clipboard Share Post on Facebook Share Post on Twitter Re: Grand #88736 12/05/02 04:23 PM Joined: Dec 2000 Posts: 13,803 Faldage Carpal Tunnel Faldage Carpal Tunnel Joined: Dec 2000 Posts: 13,803 from the G in, giga Since giga means billion and a grand isn't even a million pennies (100,000, to be precise) I wouldn't think so. I think it dates back to a time when $1000 was a grand amount of money. Copy Link to Clipboard Share Post on Facebook Share Post on Twitter Re: Grand #88737 12/05/02 04:26 PM Joined: Mar 2000 Posts: 6,511 lower upstate New York AnnaStrophic Carpal Tunnel AnnaStrophic Carpal Tunnel Joined: Mar 2000 Posts: 6,511 lower upstate New York OK. And what does the K come from to mean thousand? kilo? Copy Link to Clipboard Share Post on Facebook Share Post on Twitter Re: Grand #88738 12/05/02 04:31 PM Joined: Dec 2000 Posts: 13,803 Faldage Carpal Tunnel Faldage Carpal Tunnel Joined: Dec 2000 Posts: 13,803 K = kilo Yup Copy Link to Clipboard Share Post on Facebook Share Post on Twitter Re: Grand #88739 12/05/02 05:39 PM Joined: Nov 2002 Posts: 180 Atlanta, GA birdfeed member birdfeed member Joined: Nov 2002 Posts: 180 Atlanta, GA "I think it dates back to a time when $1000 was a grand amount of money." I've also heard the word "large" used in this context, as in "I'm into him for ten large." I wonder which came first. Copy Link to Clipboard Share Post on Facebook Share Post on Twitter Re: Grand #88740 12/05/02 06:03 PM Joined: Jan 2002 Posts: 1,526 Virginia, USA TheFallibleFiend veteran TheFallibleFiend veteran Joined: Jan 2002 Posts: 1,526 Virginia, USA K = kilo Yup Interesting (to me) sidenote. I don't know if I've mentioned this previously, here it is again anyway. Most people probably know that K=1024 (and not 1000) to computerists. 1 Kilobyte = 1 KB = 1024 Bytes 1 Megabyte = 1 MB = 1024*1024 Bytes 1 Gigabyte = 1 GB = 1024*1024*1024 Bytes However, among communications engineers (many of whom are probably also computer programmers), K equals 1000 again. 1 Kb/s = one kilobit per second, which can lead to a bit of, ahem, miscommunication at times. I didn't actually catch onto this for a long time until I finally took a formal class in networking (from a pretty well-known guy in the field, and this fact was in his class notes). I missed a lot of stuff when I studied this on my own, and had done a lot more reading. I really should have taken the class sooner. Since I figured this out, I've seen several books get it wrong (assuming my prof's notes were correct - what can I say? I trust him). k ---- Note the small b is for bit and the big B is for byte Years ago there wasn't a clear standard for what word size was, so a DEC 10 (a 36 bit computer), one could actually define one's byte sizes. And a PDP-8 (also manufactured by DEC and for a long time the most popular mini-computer in the world) had 12 bit words. 1 Byte = 8b 1/2 Word = 2B = 16b 1 Full Word = 4B = 32b 1 Double Word = 8B = 64b There was also a term for 4 bits, but I haven't heard it used for at least a decade. Does anyone know or care to guess what that term is? k Copy Link to Clipboard Share Post on Facebook Share Post on Twitter Re: Grand #88741 12/05/02 06:14 PM Joined: Dec 2000 Posts: 13,803 Faldage Carpal Tunnel Faldage Carpal Tunnel Joined: Dec 2000 Posts: 13,803 care to guess what that term is? I know so I ain' guessing. Don' nobody peek... nybble (Spellings may vary; check local geeks) Copy Link to Clipboard Share Post on Facebook Share Post on Twitter Page 1 of 3 1 2 3 Moderated by  Jackie  Hop To General Topics ------  Information and announcements  Q&A about words  Wordplay and fun  Words and languages in schools  Miscellany  Weekly Themes  Looking for (writers, speakers,... (Old) Weekly themes. 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