Thread: Millimetres vs Millimeters

The best one I came across over there was " mil " If we say something is 5 mils (sic) then we mean milimetres ( or mililitres depending on what we are measuring) to the Americans though a mil is a thousandth of an inch. This caused lots of head scratching when I was in college over there. You can see why NASA/European joint spaceships crash.......

This thread started on spelling, wandered through pronunciation, and onto word differences.
On pronunciation there is a tendency to copy Americanisms by those who should know better. I hate the use of "le-ver-age" instead of English "lee-ver-age." The Americans use a le-ver but we use a lee-ver and these American copyists don't see the mistake they make. There are of course many other examples.
In different words an example comes to mind. My wife ran a cardiac catheter laboratory here in Melb and was asked by a visiting US doctor to call an anasthesiologist. She replied, We haven't got one. Would an anaesthetist do?

Jerry

Everyone is entitled to my opinion

And I want to whack the knuckles of every tv and radio presenter who says

"klommutters" instead of "kilo-metres".

Why do people do that???

I've never heard anyone screw up any other measurement's pronunciation, so why poor old kilometres?

Or maybe we could all start saying "mllimutters", and "klog-rams"..

Grrrr....
Andrew

Same reason people say cup-a-chino or mug-a-chino

Thru
Yo-gurt
neighbor


Sometimes we use mils, like if you have one of those plastic syringes to give a teething child his medicine.

Originally Posted by ubeaut

Americains can't pronounce simple words like Aluminium (Aloominum) and nuclear (nukula) so something that finishes with re or ise has to be changed to er and ize so they have some idea how to pronounce the words.

You should hear some of the pronunciations of Japanese car names like Nissan (Nyzaan) or try asking for a glass of water in Texas (wardder) or figure out why oil is pronounced all, you is pronounced y'all and everyone is pronounced ally'al.

And they reckon we're a weird mob. Nup we're probably one of the few countries that actually speaks and Writes English (as an entire nation) the way it should be, including the English themselves who are probably the worlds worst at speaking proper English.

2nd try at reply.
I just found this discussion as I had finished a bit of verse for a U.K.Magazine and it seemed relevant to this thread. Anyway, here it is for what it's worth. (If it works this time)

"klommutters" instead of "kilo-metres".

Even worse I recently heard a mile described as 1.6 kilos by a TV presenter. Not very heavy for such a long way.

The Victorian minister for the Arts in the Cain Govt opened the Working With Wood Show many years ago with a speech in which she referred (a number of times) to the beautiful work of the wooden artesians. All that was heard for the next hour or so during the champagne and nibblie bit of the opening were comments like "well, well, well." or "what a boring speech" or "Wooden water eh, I wonder...." etc.

And what a bout those weather presenters here in Oz who say Twenny instead of Twenty. How freakin' common.

Thanks for biting folks. I live the way one can throw a baited line in here, then stand back and real 'em in. I've had a good read and a good laugh.

Cheers - Neil

PS This time of the year I'm pretty sure most (1st and only language) English speakers would say PaJ-earo just as they would say Jesus instead Hay-Zuse. No offense meant to Spanish speakers.

Line baited again, he sits back and awaits Attachment 63262

HA! (or is it JA!)

thanks for a good one.

[And they reckon we're a weird mob. Nup we're probably one of the few countries that actually speaks and Writes English (as an entire nation) the way it should be, including the English themselves who are probably the worlds worst at speaking proper English.

[/QUOTE]

I read that just as I had finished this for a U.K. magazine. I think it is relevant. What do you think?

Dennis

I generally agree except for two items:

1. antepenultimate stanza - brought to you is probably acceptable - it is being used adjectivally and does not require any conjunction
2. penultimate stanza - First Principle - isn't First being used ordinally (i.e. as in First Fleet, First Republic, etc).

Otherwise, SWMBO and I like your poem

The wife just read that Paris Hilton's grandfather decided to leave 98% of his 2.8 billion fortune to charity, which raised the obvious question, "How much is that?"

Thought you guys would get a kick out of what I googled....

<table style=" 509px; 78px;" class="blue" cellpadding="7"><tbody><tr><td>

How many is a billion?

</td> <td width="25%">
</td></tr></tbody></table> If you are American, it is undoubtedly 1,000,000,000. This amount is known to traditionally minded British people as `a thousand million', and by some more adventurous ones as a 'milliard', though this word has not made as much headway in English as in some other European languages. A trillion is then 1,000,000,000,000, and so on.
If you are British, on the other hand, a billion may be 1,000,000,000,000 (a million million), following the older convention.
If you are neither British nor American, you can take your pick! (Both systems were invented by the French, but are called 'British' and 'American' for convenience.)
Once the business world and the financial press found themselves discussing `thousand millions' so much, the 'American' system simply became more convenient, despite a certain lack of logical tidiness. (A 'British' trillion is the third power of a million, while the 'American' one is the fourth power of a thousand, and the 'American' system continues out of sync with the arithmetic). It also makes the profits sound bigger! The 'American' system is now standard use in British government publications, and is becoming the norm in many other languages. <table> <tbody><tr> <th>
</th> <th>`American'</th> <th>`British'</th> </tr> <tr> <td>10¹²</td> <td>trillion</td> <td>billion</td> </tr> <tr> <td>10¹⁵</td> <td>quadrillion</td> <td>thousand billion</td> </tr> <tr> <td>10¹⁸</td> <td>quintillion</td> <td>trillion</td> </tr> <tr> <td>10²¹</td> <td>sextillion</td> <td>thousand trillion</td> </tr> <tr> <td>10²⁴</td> <td>septillion</td> <td>quadrillion</td> </tr> <tr> <td>10²⁷</td> <td>octillion</td> <td>thousand quadrillion</td> </tr> <tr> <td>10³⁰</td> <td>nonillion</td> <td>quintillion</td> </tr> <tr> <td>10³³</td> <td>decillion</td> <td>thousand quintillion</td> </tr> </tbody></table>
In the 'British' system, it would also possible to use 'billiard' for 'thousand billion', 'trilliard' for 'thousand trillion', etc., but this has not so far caught on.


Anybody want to go to the pub for a game of 'thousand billions'?

Well mates, as a "Gaijin" (forigner - Japanese) in English, I can tell you that English is not an easy language at all...

Lets start from the Alphabet...A is sometimes AH and sometimes AI and sometimes O (all)......C is pronounced as S but also as K..... E is EH but also EE...G (Golf - Judge) I...O...U...you know better....

So, it's difficult because, or you know how to spell and pronounce or you don't...actually, you have to memorize the spelling and pronunciation of almost every word....other languages that I know, ones you know the Alphabet, you know to read, write and pronounce correctly and the grammar is very consistent without many irregulars.

You have to realize, that UK, Aussie and USA are countries with many immigrants that have their "home language" like Russians, Spanish and alike that cannot understand why you pronounce one way and write in different way if every letter has only one pronunciation (for them)...they have to get use to the idea that A, E, I, O, U that are pronounced very clearly and only in one way in their language, have a few pronunciations in English

And I don't want to talk about the English grammar...

About the letter J, in a few languages, it is pronounced as YE so all the Biblical words like Yehovah, Yonatan or Yesus (Greek) where changed to Jehovah, Jonathan and Jesus when the Bible was translated from Hebrew to English.

The Spanish J (Chota) is pronounced as CH like in "loCH ness".

OK, so, during the 2nd word war, the Aussie's came to help the British forces.

At that day they were under heavy bombardment and one of the Aussie's was standing and looking around.

The British officer shouted on him "Hey you, get down, did you come here TO DIE".....No Sir, YESTERDAY" replied the Aussie

Happy new year to all of you mates
niki

Originally Posted by Eli

I'm racking my brain to try and remember the name, but there's another SUV with an obviously Spanish name that you guys pronounce with a hard 'J'

Yes It's Pajero you're thinking of, but there's actually no such Spanish word, despite the urban myth that it means w#nker in Spanish.....

It's just one of those dopey car names marketing types think up, like Celica or Elantra, that have no meaning.

As for the millimetre/millmeter thing, I'm still fuming that we rejected such useful measures as the foote and the ynche.

Gaz.

I was replying to a post this morning and I typed the word diameter and it looks right in English but diametre certainly doesn't look right and the spell checker in Firefox says that is wrong anyway.