From: Joseph B. Reid <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: February 28, 2001 18:50 >Robert Bushnell wrote in 11369: > >> "Let us go to Bill Potts' house and argue the pronunciation of giga." >>or we can say >> "Let us go to Bill Potts's house and argue the pronunciation of giga." >> PS I go for the soft g (as in giant) for the first g in giga. > >This set me to my dictionaries. Giga comes from Greek. In Greek all >letters have a unique sound, and in the case of gamma that sound is a hard >g. By the time giga got into the Italian language that first g was >certainly soft, like j. > >Hence I vote for giga with hard g's. Also, it's more intuitive with respect to the prefix 'G' Duncan >>Joseph B. Reid >17 Glebe Road West >Toronto M5P 1C8 Tel. 416 486-6071
