2K1

[Arnold Zwicky]

many newspapers use k for 'thousand' in reporting dollar figures
(salaries, real estate offers/sales, etc.) in headlines.  the
corresponding shortcut for 'million' is of course m.

this has been around for some time - exactly how long i don't
know - and has been adopted in other abbreviated written contexts,
and then into speech as well ("they're offering us 250k!").

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)