I slipped 'Spanish' in there because of the 'tr' really. I almost knew someone would take me up on that! Incidentally - 'm' for miles is not exclusive in the UK. Many news items use 'm' for :- Millions. "Almost 2m people are unemployed...."Minutes and Months. "It takes 12m to boil an egg" There are a few more but it's far too late and I can't remember right now but the irony is you're less likely to see 'm' for metres in the British press than for other things!
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 16:50:11 -0800 From: [email protected] Subject: [USMA:46638] Re: Burma To: [email protected] 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 _________________________________________________________________ Tell us your greatest, weirdest and funniest Hotmail stories http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/
