Joseph Reid asked:- | Will Mike Joy please tell us if Australia used American (short) tons | of 2000 lbs. or British (long) toms of 2240 lbs. and hundredweights | (cwt.) of 112 lbs.?
It's a metric tonne here, and has been for over 2 decades now. As Bill says it's pronounced as in 'don'. 'Tun' is only used as a general term where accuracy doesn't matter e.g. "That must weigh 10 tons or more". I guess Ford used Tonne as it sounds more masculine than 1000kg. As for the use of words like theatre and theater, yes, it's down to whether you want to be cultural or American. There's 2 ways of looking at the English spelling - either you want to use the original spelling as older, more educated people do, or the American spelling as younger folk who want to look 'cool' (such as in ads.) Same with the word night or 'nite'. I'm still reeling from watching 'Power Zone', a series on Discovery Channel. Another really interesting TV program down the drain because of the announcer's insistent use of the dumbest of terms as in "the plane weighs a million pounds". What did he use to weigh it - bathroom scales?? Seasons Greetings Mike
