Talking about splitting hair! The symbol pronunciation leads to brevity in
principle. As for the GW pronounced as <g w>, anyone driving about or thru NYC
will hear of the <g w> bridge. How convenint - the SI symbol pronunciation is
already common on I-95. :-)
I don't understand the resistance to the brevity advantage. E.g., <p s i>
pronunciation is perfectly okay but <p a> is not. I repeat, people do not
need to know that those symbols are metric or what they mean. Just as many
people do not know what psi means but can use their tire pressure gage.
Bill, are you telling a computer store clerk how much computer memory you want
in jig....? Everybody else says gig.... (as in giggle) latest since 1980. Thus
a gig-a-watt, not jig....
Stan Jakuba
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Hooper
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: 09 Jun 18, Thursday 20:53
Subject: [USMA:45245] Re: Brevity
On May 10 , at 9:45 PM, Stan Jakuba wrote:
As another example, ... the same with GW. Let's use only the symbol, not
the word gigawatt, and pronounce it g w .
This one example does not illustrate your point well. Your point was that
pronouncing the letters of the symbol is simpler (or at least shorter) than
pronouncing the name of the unit.
Pronouncing the letters of the symbol "GW" is LONGER than pronouncing the
name "gigwatt":
"GW" is pronounced "gee dub-uhl-you", four syllables.
"Gigawatt" is pronounced "jig-a-watt", only three syllables.
Regards,
Bill Hooper
Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA
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Make It Simple; Make It Metric!
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