Prefixes (was Re: Gravity and pi)

[Mark Sylvester <msylvest@SPIN.IT>]

At 20:58 14/11/98 -0600, oliver wendell holmes wrote:
(actually Paul Johnson?)
> Mark
>
> I say again, I'm not against all prefixes -- just the useless ones such
> as yotta, yocto, etc. I agree that nano is cool, terra is even cooler;
> but that's as far as I've ever heard.

Yes, I thought you were launching a general diatribe against prefixes when
I wrote my comments.

> I do have a problem with micro. It was very easy for me as a student to
> differentiate between a micron (a millionth of a meter) and a micrometer
> (an instrument for measuring sizes accurately). Now we ask our students
> to differentiate between a micrometer and a micrometer.

In a teaching situation I tend to say "micrometer screw gauge", with the
accent on the "o" in micrometer, while the unit is a micro-meter. I think
other languages have a different name for the instrument, anyway. But I
agree it's a nuisance.

> I also have a problem with folks pronouncing kilometer with the accent
> on lom as if it were an instrument with a smaller least count than a
> micrometer. We don't pronounce kilogram with the accent on log or
> kilopascal with the accent on lop. Why don't people pronounce kilometer
> with the accent on kil?

Even in Italian, which is usually very consistent about pronunciation, this
problem exists. When the accent in an Italian word shifts from the
penultimate syllable, it's for a clear etymological reason, and yet
"kilometro" with the accent on the "lom" is universal, whereas "kilogramma"
gives equal weight to the "kil" and the "gram", as one would expect. There
must be something irresistible about the shape of the word that draws the
accent to the "lom".

I continue to say kil-ometre in the "proper" way.

Mark


Mark Sylvester
United World College of the Adriatic
34013 Duino TS
Italy.
msylvest@spin.it
tel: +39 040 3739 255