Jouni Valkonen wrote:
However world would be much simpler place to live if they just had used kilojoules per second to indicate power.
That would be the same kind of notation as kWh/h; i.e., power energy expressed as energy over time. It would be much simpler if they would would use watts, or kilowatts. Joules are a measure of energy. Power is measured in watts.
Anyway, people will do what they do. We should try to understand what they mean, and we should not quibble about the details. Mind you, when I edit papers, my job is to quibble, and I do. I sometimes impose U.S. units and notation on European papers. One thing I never do is convert British spelling to American; i.e. programme => program; defence => defense. Doing that upsets the poor dears to no end.
Chris Tinsley once said to me "you Americans use such quaint words such as gasoline." I told him that British English sounds quaint to us. In point of fact, most American English is older than British forms. We are the quaint ones. When people immigrate to areas with low population and few interactions, older forms are preserved. From the 17th to 19th centuries English speakers in North America were isolated and cut off from other speakers, compared to those back in England. So the pace of change in American English was slower than in England. Immigrant groups of people speaking Japanese and Chinese have preserved 19th-century versions of these languages more than the larger groups of speakers in those countries.
The other major difference between American and British English is that American English in the 18th century among upper-class people such as George Washington tended to be more formal than typical British English. Visitors from England noted this.
- Jed
