2003-02-13 I'll bet if you tell someone from Britain or the US that two cities are "60 miles" apart, they will not understand it to mean 600 km, but about 100 km. Of course they will not understand it to mean anything in kilometres. When the British and Americans hear the word mile, be it land, sea or air, Schwedisch, German, French, or Chinese, etc., it will always mean the version their car odometer is calibrated in. As far as these people are concerned, there is only one size mile.
John ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gustaf Sj�berg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, 2003-02-13 14:27 Subject: [USMA:24837] Re: different miles > The Swedish mile is nowadays, as pointed out, exactly 10 km. > It is used frequently in speech and in newspaper texts as well. > It was however "metrified" when Sweden went metric in the 1880's. > The old mile was 36000 Swedish feet, about 10.7 km. Most Swedish people > however don't know that, since the conversion took place such a long > time ago. > If someone asks for the distance between two cities we would rather > say "sixty miles" than "sixhundred kilometers". (Sextio mil, sexhundra > kilometer). > Miles are almost always used for longer distances. As far as I know, it > is the only quasi-metric unit used in Sweden, but a very useful one, and > it is also used in Norway. > Gustaf, Stockholm, Sweden >
