Actually the Spanish spelling is kilometro, and Portuguese, quilometro. There are many spelling variations in the SI across languages, but everybody uses the same symbols. Most avoid using SI symbols for non-SI units. One notable (glaring?) exception is "m" for miles in the UK
________________________________ From: Stephen Humphreys <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Sat, February 13, 2010 7:03:28 PM Subject: [USMA:46636] Re: Burma Hey - Even CNN switch to metric for the international stuff ;-) 'And they used the UK spelling of "kilometre". ' ---and French, Irish, spanish etc :-) ________________________________ Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:34:14 +0000 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [USMA:46631] Re: Burma Yes, Stephen, I thought about it some more and came to the same conclusion you have. What threw me off, I think, is that I saw some indications somewhere in the Lonely Planet publications that they originate in the UK. But your analogy with the BBC World Service sounds right to me. They likely made an editorial decision to have just one unit of measure in their publications and that would naturally be metric to be (in theory at least) understood world-wide. Ezra And they used the UK spelling of "kilometre". ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen Humphreys" <[email protected]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, February 13, 2010 11:10:19 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: [USMA:46629] Re: Burma Not sure. Some publishers use kiolmetres for international books. Perhaps it's something like that. Like the way 'BBC World' would say 'The accident happened 3 kilometres from the junction' with the exact same feature being broadcast as 'The accident happened 2 miles from the junction' in domestic BBC stations. You mention it as a excerpt - was the spelling 'metER' as you mention or 'metRE'? I can assure you that almost all publications, and other media outlets, would use miles over here. Based on the non-metrication of our roads I'd guess. ________________________________ Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:34:26 +0000 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [USMA:46627] Re: Burma But then how does that explain why they gave the distance only in kilometers and not both kilometers and miles? -- Ezra ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen Humphreys" <[email protected]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, February 13, 2010 5:40:34 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: [USMA:46622] Re: Burma Ezra:"I noted in one of their (free) excerpts from another part of the book that they referred to the length of a particular railway journey in kilometres, which I presume was done for the benefit of their (UK) readers." > > > >Surely you mean 'miles' (UK tracks being in miles and UK citizens usage). km >would be there for Australia for example. ________________________________ Not got a Hotmail account? Sign-up now - Free ________________________________ We want to hear all your funny, exciting and crazy Hotmail stories. Tell us now ________________________________ Do you want a Hotmail account? Sign-up now - Free
