I think that the term 'Centigrade' might be used by older people in France, and other Romanic language countries. However, I haven't seen 'Centigrade' for years on the European continent, only on the British Isles, which may become IONA (Isles of the Northern Atlantic) in the future, as 26 of the 32 counties in Ireland are not British anymore. I hope that IONA will be metric at last and that the BWMA and Inch Perfect will be as dead as a doornail. The other Germanic speaking countries Germany, The Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries, have never used 'Centigrade'. The Netherlands used degrees Fahrenheit from the 18th century into the first decades of the twentieth century, then we adopted degrees Celsius, never degrees Centigrade.
Han ----- Original Message ----- From: "James-Jason Wentworth" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, 2002-12-22 7:48 Subject: [USMA:24165] Re: Jason's post > <But I like the word millibar over hectopascal. The latter is overly > long and odd-sounding. "Bar" sounds of barometric, which everyone > knows has to do with air pressure. Most people know that "milli" > means 1/1000 or something small like that. But "pascal"? > And "hecto"? Hey, Bub, watch your language!> > > You have a very good point there, Harry. One of the things that broke > me out of my "SI purism" was finding out that many European companies, > organizations, and individuals still use pre-SI unit names. The bar is > still often used to denote pressure in tires and hydraulic equipment > (as well as in Russian rocket engines, although the Russians also use > the *really* obsolete kilogram of force instead of the newton to > measure rocket thrust). Also, many Europeans (probably mostly older > citizens) still use degrees Centigrade. -- Jason > > >
