Carsten: I haven't noticed, in the other replies to your message, any comment about your use of the word "abbreviation."
There are no official abbreviations for metric units. There are many (incorrect!) unofficial ones (e.g., mtr for meter), of course, including the two you've specified -- kgs and mt. In SI, there are only full names (which vary by language) and symbols (which, in order to be international in scope, don't vary by language). The word "symbol" is used, simply because the letters used are not abbreviations (except for symbols named after people -- which could be said to be highly-standardized abbreviations -- but they are still defined as symbols). If abbreviations were used, they would have to vary from language to language. (There would be a problem, for example, with the Italian for kilometer -- chil�metro.) Thus, h is the symbol for hour, for languages where the word starts with h (English, French, Spanish, etc.) and languages where it doesn't (e.g., German), and for languages that don't even have an alphabet (e.g., Chinese). Others have pointed out that both the small and the large L are correct for liter, L being the only uppercase unit symbol not based on someone's name. The exception is worthwhile for the sake of readability. For a while, a cursive small L was often used (again, for readability), but that was never officially sanctioned (and almost certainly never will be) and is comparatively rare today. The best document on the subject is BIPM's official SI Brochure (also available in French as Brochure SI). Go to http://metric1.org/dldocs.htm and you'll find links to both of them. (They're both PDFs.) You should also download the "Suppl�ment 2000" document, which is in both French and English, if you want the most up to date information. At the end of the same page is a link to a PDF document on legal units in Germany. It's on the site of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) at http://www.ptb.de/en/index.html. Tsch�ss, Bill Potts, CMS Roseville, CA http://metric1.org [SI Navigator] >-----Original Message----- >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Behalf Of Carsten Guthardt-Schulz >Sent: Sunday, February 29, 2004 18:18 >To: U.S. Metric Association >Subject: [USMA:29037] Metric abbreviations > > >Hi, > >Is there somewhere a list with the official abbreviations for >metric units? At school in Germany I was taught the lowercase l >for litre, kg for kilograms and t for tons. Here in Canada I see >quite often L for litre or even mL, as well as kgs or mt (metric >tons). What's correct? >Is the US or UK ton still used anywhere at all? If so, how is it >abbreviated? > >Last question: I heard some two years ago that the US was planning >to pass a law allowings metric-only labeling. I haven't followed >developments very closely, what's the status of this? > > >Carsten >
