today's lucky 10,000

English

Alternative forms

• today's lucky ten thousand

Etymology

Coined by American cartoonist, author and engineer Randall Munroe in 2012 in his webcomic xkcd, based on a calculation that given four million yearly births in the United States, about ten thousand people learn something that "everyone knows" every day.

Noun

today's lucky 10,000 pl (plural only)

1. A theoretical set of 10,000 people who learn something considered "common knowledge" for the first time.

   Don't make fun of people who don't know something; they're one of today's lucky 10,000!

   • For quotations using this term, see Citations:today's lucky 10,000.