All here seem to agree so far that the "correct" pronunciation is kilo-meter not kil-om-e-ter.
Fortunately, I caught my own unrelated spelling error. The correct spelling is SOCHI not SUCHI. Politely, no others have reported this "gastronomical" error! Eugene Mechtly ________________________________ From: owner-u...@colostate.edu [owner-u...@colostate.edu] on behalf of Zach Rodriguez [zachrrodrig...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, February 17, 2014 2:36 PM To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:53566] Re: No Accent on "lom" in kilometer! In Spanish and Portuguese, it is "kilómetro" and "quilômetro" (Brazilian)/"quilómetro" (European), respectively, stressed where accented. It's technically a ki-LO-meter sound rather than a ki-LOM-eter sound, but the same syllable is stressed. When reinforcing metric to my little sister, I emphasize the "kilo-meter" pronunciation. Funnily enough, I've seen some British, Canadian, and Australian people write "speedometre" instead of "speedometer", overcorrecting because they believe all -er endings are Americanisms, rather than realizing that "-meter" is the correct spelling to mean a measuring device in any dialect of English. My guess is that these people also use the "kilom-etre" pronunciation because it would rhyme with "speedometre". On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 12:37 PM, <ezra.steinb...@comcast.net<mailto:ezra.steinb...@comcast.net>> wrote: Gene: I suspect this wrong pronunciation stems from an auditory analogy with "thermometer". Not justified, of course ... just a plausible explanation. I can't think of another European language where the pronunciation would be similar. -- Ezra ________________________________ From: "eugene a mechtly" <mech...@illinois.edu<mailto:mech...@illinois.edu>> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <usma@colostate.edu<mailto:usma@colostate.edu>> Cc: "eugene a mechtly" <mech...@illinois.edu<mailto:mech...@illinois.edu>> Sent: Monday, February 17, 2014 10:19:48 AM Subject: [USMA:53563] No Accent on "lom" in kilometer! The CGPM does not publish an official "Guide for Pronouncing the Names and Multiples of SI Units." Nevertheless, I am confident that members of the CIPM (and CGPM) would reject an accent on the "lom" in the word kilometer. NBC commentators at the SUCHI Olympic events, *all* seem to have adopted this bad practice of accenting the "lom." Who initiated this *deviation* from the established global practice of enunciating both the prefix "kilo" and the stem "meter"? In spoken French and German there is no accented "lom" in kilometer! Is "lom" accented in any other languages which you might speak? Eugene Mechtly
