I'm gonna take a wild stab here and assume that this is "Q" as the medieval Latin abbreviation for "quingenti", which usually means 500, but also gets glossed just as a big number, as in "milia quingenta" "thousands upon thousands". Maybe some medieval scribe substituted a Q for |V| (with an overscore on the V), which would be the more normal way to write 5,000 and then 500,000.
--Ken > Now that Q = 500,000 bit seems a little odd to me. I've never seen > that anywhere else. Does anyone know where it came from? Is there real > usage of Q for 500,000? > > —Ben Scarborough >
