I don't concern myself with how people pronounce non-SI units, even when
reading them in symbolic form. After all, I'm the one who started
calling "fl. oz." as "floozies" and "sq. ft." as "square tootsies".
If you decide that you want to pronounce SI symbols letter-by-letter,
Stan, that's your business I suppose. I'm not in favor of it, though,
and will not do so myself.
Jim
Stan Jakuba wrote:
Jim:
And why not? I have never heard anyone telling me that something had (40)
british thermal units. Or (25) pounds pre square inch. Instead, only
(40) b t
us. Or (25) p s i.
And so it is with the majority of the 460 or so units in use. Some might
seem awkward as you seem to perceive it, but that is only a matter of
habit.
Come to think of it, I was doing a lot of calculations and measurements
after
coming to the U.S. that involved BTU, Btu, BTU, btu, etc. before I even new
(needed to know) what it stood for.
SI has the potential, of course, to go beyond that. I quote from my book:
It has been a widespread practice in the metric world to pronounce only
prefixes, and not the units (e.g. shopping in "kilos", running 10 "k"
races). This is because SI has only one unit for any physical quantity;
once
the quantity is mentioned, or is apparent from the context, no confusion as
to the missing unit can result. As matter of fact, SI enables to not
mention
also the prefix if the value refers to a commonly known situation. For
example, a tire pressure gage has no unit on its dial specified it being
known that all tires have air pressure in the 100 to 1000 kPa range.
In the above example, the kPa is implied. One says only: "my tire was 230"
referring to its pressure. I have in my collection European gages with no
unit or prefix. As another example, dimensions have no "mm" with them.
In every engineering discipline as well as daily life there are "reference"
values that need on further qualifiers, symbolized or spelled out. Such
usage will grow as SI spreads with new graduates educated in SI. Thus our
USMA drive for using symbols will save paper and ink in the future but will
make no difference in conversation; units will not come up at all,
eventually.
Stan Jakuba
----- Original Message ----- From: "James R. Frysinger"
<[email protected]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Sent: 09 May 10, Sunday 22:07
Subject: [USMA:45055] Re: Brevity
Stan,
I strongly agree with using the symbolic form for units and prefixes in
writing, as opposed to the spelled out names.
However, I strongly disagree with pronouncing the names of the letters in
those symbols when speaking, as opposed to pronouncing the names.
The practice of pronouncing the letters is what has led to inanities such
as "five em ells", which should be "five milliliters" (5 mL). Do you give
directions to people by telling them to "drive three kay ems down the
road, turn right, then it's only another two hundred ems to the
restaurant"?
"Abercrombie & Fitch" is pronounced as "Abercrombie and Fitch" by most
people, not as "Abercrombie ampersand Fitch".
I end here; my brain aitch zee.
Jim
Stan Jakuba wrote:
I appreciate the praise received for the suggested "metrication
strategy"
that said:
Sell units, forget about selling metric. How to sell units? Use them.
When? Now. Where? Everywhere.
In addition, I should like to advise the following: When doing so, use
symbols. Do not write out, nor spell out, metric units and prefixes. For
example, kPa is pronounced k p a just like psi is pronounced p s
i. Do not say or write thirty kilopascals; say thirty k p a , write
30 kPa. (No need to remind me of the press editorial guidelines -
everything can be changed, and they do not apply to discussion groups.)
The rationale for the brevity? Endlessly I hear complains from most
inch-pound people that metric units are too long. Perhaps they are, in
comparison to "rod" or "are," but certainly not to "horsepower" or
"british thermal unit." But that's besides the point. Anti-metrics seem
forgetting that in I-P one adds the names of the powers of ten (10³) to
the units. Few realize that, for example, saying " k p a " is shorter
than saying "thousand p s i." Or that " k m " is pronounced quicker
than "thousand miles." SI symbols are brief and we Americans love
abbreviations and acronyms. That realization should ease the road to
metric. Pat, please write EJ, not exajoule. We will pronounce it e j
and soon others will learn that energy in e j means a lot of it, like
in oil reserves. As another example, inspired by my earlier e-mail, the
same with GW. Let's use only the symbol, not the word gigawatt, and
pronounce it g w .
While on the brevity, let me also re-introduce clarity to the
terminology in the energy-related discussions I just wrote about
elsewhere. I suggested to call the quantity "energy per time" the
"wattage." Energy/time is wattage - the "new" term for what used to be
called power. As said, I had seen it used sporadically in the past.
Stan Jakuba
--
James R. Frysinger
632 Stony Point Mountain Road
Doyle, TN 38559-3030
(C) 931.212.0267
(H) 931.657.3107
(F) 931.657.3108
--
James R. Frysinger
632 Stony Point Mountain Road
Doyle, TN 38559-3030
(C) 931.212.0267
(H) 931.657.3107
(F) 931.657.3108
