Dear Carleton and All,
I know this is off-topic, but I thought it might amuse you.
Recently I visited the Geelong showgrounds where I was introduced to the cat
that lived there. It was a large cat called GAPS. When I inquired about its
name, I was told that it was the Geelong Agricultural and
on 2003-06-11 23.01, Paul Trusten, R.Ph. at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Dear Paul and All,
snip
But, will the American people fathom it? Whoops, there
goes the WOMBAT left in my soul:
How many other unit names have become separate words in their own right?
Here are three examples:
1 To inch
Dear All,
I am writing to let you know of a small success that I had with a local
newspaper.
Background:
A physics teacher wrote to the paper to complain about the paper using the
abbreviation kmh, instead of km/h. As you will see, the newspaper's response
goaded me to action.
I had no response
Dear Bill and All,
I have followed your discussion in support of a rigorous definition of the
word, acronym, and I can see the distinctions that you are making.
However, I have always understood that the designers of Le Système
International d'Unités alway intended that the letters SI should be
Pat:
From IEEE/ASTM SI 10:
The name International System of Units and the international abbreviation SI
(from Le Système International d'Unités) were adopted by the 11th CGPM in
1960.
The SI Brochure, itself, says (as one of the decisions of the 11th CGPM):
1. the system founded on the six
I don't know if this qualifies, but yardstick is often used as a term meaning a
basis of judgement, or, Heaven help us, a standard. Here's Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry: yard·stick
Pronunciation: 'yärd-stik
Function: noun
Date: 1816
1 a : a graduated measuring stick three feet (0.9144 meter)
Pat:
Your message, below, appears to be an exact duplicate of your USMA: 26025.
Bill Potts, CMS
Roseville, CA
http://metric1.org [SI Navigator]
-Original Message-
From: Pat Naughtin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2003 00:54
To: Bill Potts; U.S. Metric Association
Dear Bill,
Sorry about that. I am in the midst of changing computers. It may be that I
inadvertently sent it twice but this was entirely unintentional.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin LCAMS
Geelong, Australia
on 2003-06-12 19.08, Bill Potts at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Pat:
Your message, below,
Dear Bill,
Thanks for that reference. I found it on page 113 of the English
translation. You are right that the original reference is to an
'abbreviation'.
I was alway taught that the 'symbol' was SI. Clearly, I have been in error
for a number of years.
Thanks again for the reference, and
They just didn't have the will to it. See below.
Howard Ressel
Project Design Engineer, Region 4
(585) 272-3372
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/11/03 04:14PM
2003 June 11
I asked the Colorado DOT about metric units. I received this reply.
It makes a good case for not
Gene Mechtly wrote in USMA 26018:
*acronym* A word formed by the combining of initial letters of a series
of words or syllables and letters of a series of words or a compound term.
Funk Wagnalls Dictionary, International Edition.
In my opinion, the two-character symbol *SI* may be correctly
Here I had to visit several drug stores
before I found a Celius-only fever thermometer.
--
Do you mean an electronic style fever thermometer or
a glass one? In the Ottawa area, I had no problem
finding a Celsius (only) fever thermometer.
1
Title: Re: [USMA:26021] RE: my German friend never heard
of S
Bill Potts wrote in USMA 26021:
Adefinitive
description of what an acronym is and is not is in the New York Public
Library Desk Reference. Here it is:
Acronyms are pronounceable formations made
by combining the initial letters or
Stephen Gallagher asked in USMA 26013:
Here I had to visit several drug stores
before I found a Celius-only fever thermometer.
--
Do you mean an electronic style fever thermometer or
a glass one? In the Ottawa area, I had no problem
finding a Celsius (only) fever thermometer.
It was an
Title: Re: [USMA:26021] RE: my German friend never heard of S
This is getting to be
quite bizarre. It quite clearly does not agree with Gene and
you. Implicit in the description is that pronunciation follows normal English
(in this case) pronunciation conventions. (There is no explicit
Title: Re: [USMA:26021] RE: my German friend never heard of S
Technically, I agree
with you. Although initialism is a very rarely used word, it does fit the
situation.
The fact remains,
though,that the 11th CGPM definedSI as an abbreviation.
It's also a fact that
even my very large
Title: Re: [USMA:26037] RE: my German friend never heard
of S
Bill Potts wrote in USMA 26037:
If you loosely use
the word acronym for abbreviation, you remove all distinction between
the two words, thus rendering at least one of them
useless.
Bill Potts, CMS
That is not unusual in the
Title: Re: [USMA:26038] RE: my German friend never heard
of S
Don
Hillger wrote in USMA 26038:
Technically, SI should be called an initialism
defined below asdistinct fromeither anacronym or an
abbreviation:
An acronym is composed of the initial letters or parts of a
compound term. It is
Joe..
Why do you insist so hard, when after all the evidence detailing what is in
fact an abbreviation, and what is in fact an acronym. SI is NOT an acronym,
pretty much end of story. For you to keep insisting that it is, is
just nonsense.
Why are you having such a hard time with this simple
Title: Re: [USMA:26038] RE: my German friend never heard
of S
Bill,
Technically, SI should be called an initialism
defined below asdistinct fromeither anacronym or an
abbreviation:
An acronym is composed of the initial letters or parts of a
compound term. It is usually read or spoken as a
Joe Reid wrote:
My Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 1970 printing, does not contain
acronym. Nor does Funk Wagnalls New Practical Standard Dictionary, 1955
edition. It seems to be a new word based on the Greek akron, meaning
extremity, end, or tip.
That moved me to look in my 1962 Britannica
Joe:
The message you quote below is without attribution. Can we assume, from
USMA: 26042, that the writer was Brian White?
Whoever wrote it, I agree with him, of course.
Bill Potts, CMS
Roseville, CA
http://metric1.org [SI Navigator]
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Exactly my point,
Carleton, notwithstanding the rather peculiar contrarian position taken by Joe
and Gene.
Ess eye is not, of
course, a pronunciation of SI (which would be either see [for those who prefer
the Italian, Spanish or French approach] or sigh), but an enunciation of the two
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