Joe Reid wrote: >But the French word is grade. My Petit Robert French dictionary does >not list grad My Muret-Sanders German-English dictionary gives 4 >meanings for grad, but not in the sense that we are discussing. It >has no entry for grade.
Of course, in German, Grad, being a noun, is always capitalized. In normal conversation, it is used for temperature, angle, latitude and longitude, and also "degree," "level" or "extent" in a generic sense. "An angle of 30 degrees" would be "ein Winkel von 30 Grad." A temperature of 30 degrees Celsius would be expressed simply as "30 Grad" (with Celsius implied, as nobody uses Fahrenheit). (To fully conform to SI practice, "30 Grad" would have to be "30 Grad Celsius.") Jim Frysinger's German page at http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj/SI_german.htm lists both Grad Celsius (SI unit) and Grad (for angle -- non-SI unit). Bill Potts, CMS Roseville, CA http://metric1.org [SI Navigator]
