As a Social-Security-eligible baby boomer, I am constantly
struggling to accept the changes I cannot unchange. I accept, for example, that
all things new do not suck. I accept that a single space between sentences is sufficient. But certain aspects of our evolving language present challenges that have me shouting into the gale. I have ranted
previously about the fugly misuse of terms such as “begs the question,” and
“ultimate.” I accept that such terms will continue to be misused, and I try not
to judge those who do, and I accept the word “fugly.”
But sometimes my calcified mind fails to adjust, as in the
case of the headline “Wife of Billionaire Demands 1M Per Month in Child
Support.”
My thought upon reading that is, A thousand bucks a month? Why so little? Of course, when I succumb
to the clickbait headline, I find that the wife is asking for a million bucks a
month, which is far less interesting than a thousand.
Until maybe twenty-five years ago, “1M” was generally
understood to mean 1000, “M” being the Roman numeral for 1000. Twenty-five years
ago if one wanted to abbreviate 1,000,000, one would write 1MM.
Why did this change? Where did the other M go? And why am I
having so much trouble adapting?
I blame the “K,” as in kilo, the metric
prefix for 1000. We run a 10K (ten times 1000 meters), we talk about things
like annual salaries and the cost of cars in terms of Ks. And once K entered
the language as shorthand for 1000, people stopped using M so much and sort of
forgot what it meant.
Then computers and email happened, and the world went crazy
for acronyms and abbreviations. The people using this new technology were
relatively young and they had not learned their Roman numerals, so when they
needed to shorten the word “million” they used the letter (not the Roman
numeral) M.
Okay, that’s reasonable. Roman numerals are rather pretentious and not terribly useful. Language changes. Maybe this baby boomer
brain can change too.
Oh, but it burns!
Posts
