John Schweisthal wrote: Ton is only 909 kg, whereas tonne is 1000 kg. Not the same thing.
No kidding! That was the whole point of my implied advice to Ford -- selling the 10% greater capacity -- a point easier to make with "metric ton" than with "tonne," which is likely to be regarded as an eccentric spelling, rather than a different unit. As for theatre and centre, they have the same number of letters as theater and center, so it's a different issue. The trouble with tonne is that one is inclined to pronounce it to rhyme with don, which is the way it's pronounced in French -- being a French word, after all. Remember that we want to get over the strange idea that SI is, somehow, a system being imposed by the French. However, whether tonne or metric ton prevails, the term will eventually revert to ton (meaning, by then, 1000 kg). Bill Potts, CMS Roseville, CA http://metric1.org [SI Navigator]
