[USMA:35535] Re: Happy New Year

[Pat Naughtin]

Title: Re: [USMA:35532] Re: Happy New Year

Dear Pierre,

Many thanks for your comments. I appreciate your help.

I have fixed the erroneous date.

Your reference to Flanders reminds me of a time that I was sitting in the sunshine, supping on a Belgian beer, in 'Place Simon Stevin', Brugge, while I reflected on the original decimal methods that Simon Stevin published in 1585. I visited Brugge in 1985.

Simon Stevin wrote in Flemish, as he rejected Latin, so my research into his original material required me to translate his work from the native language of Flanders -- Flemish.

My translation was fairly rough, so these days I refer to a copy of the English translation of ‘Disme: The Art of Tenths’ or ‘Decimall Arithmetike’ made by Robert Norton in 1608 made for me by the British Museum Library.

Curiously, I suspect that the name of the dime in the USA came from the title of Simon Stevin’s book, Disme. ‘Disme’ was the initial spelling, but this was later reduced to ‘dime’ to make writing it easier.

I don't think that I will highlight the units ångstrom, are, bar, barn, hectare, litre, or tonne any further in this article. I might refer to them elsewhere.

Cheers,

Pat Naughtin LCAMS (USMA), Member NSAA*
PO Box 305, Belmont, 3216
Geelong, Australia
Phone 61 3 5241 2008

Pat Naughtin is the editor of the free online monthly newsletter, 'Metrication matters'.
You can subscribe by going to http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter

 * Pat is the editor of the 'Numbers and measurement' chapter of the Australian Government Publishing Service 'Style manual – for writers, editors and printers', he is a Lifetime Certified Advanced Metrication Specialist (LCAMS) with the United States Metric Association, a member of the National Speakers Association of Australia and the International Federation for Professional Speakers. For more information go to: http://metricationmatters.com

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On 2/01/06 7:19 AM, "Pierre Abbat" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> On Saturday 31 December 2005 17:45, Pat Naughtin wrote:
>> http://www.metricationmatters.com/why_metrication.html
>
> You might want to mention that some of the non-SI units in use with SI are
> decimal multiples of SI units:
>
> Flanders still exists as part of Belgium.
>
> 1999 June 22: Apparently you mean 1799 June 22.
>
> phma
>