I tidy up of the SI system would perhaps include abandoning prefixes that are not multiples of 1000. So we would no longer need the following prefixes: 'h', 'da', 'd' or 'c'. Thus we would only need to deal with one anomaly of lower case i.e. 'k'.
That is a good recommendation for engineering practice, but the following applications of 'h, 'da', 'd' and 'c' are commonly used:
hectare for land, hectolitre for wholesale wine, hectogram for delikatessen . foods,
dekanewton in mechanical engineering instead of kilogram-force,
decilitre for cream and retail wine,
centiimetre in tailoring.
-- Joseph B. Reid 17 Glebe Road West Toronto M5P 1C8 Telephone 416-486-6071
