Re: OT: Rant about degres Celsius (was: introduction)

TriatN WROTE:
> > From: "Tristan Alexander McLeay" <anstouh@...>
> > > Does anyone know why degrees Celsius is such an irregular measurement?
> > > It's the only measurement capitalised, it's formed from two parts,
>it's
> > > the part of a limited group of (two) measurements (angle and degrees
> > > Celsius) that should be written with the symbol attached to it, it's
> > > obeys different rules in Dutch Grammar...
> >
> > Well, it's capitalized because it's named after someone; there is a
> > non-capitalized, generic version: 'centigrade'.
>
>Firstly, I think that `centigrade' is non-standard, I've seen a number of
>things recommending it not be used. The kelvin, joule, coulomb, watt and
>newton (to name a few) are all named after people, but only their symbols
>are capitalised (K, J, C, W, N). (L for litre and B for byte are also
>exceptional in that their symbols are capitalised but they aren't derived
>from proper nouns, but L used to be a script l and Americans don't use the
>metric system, so how are they supposed to know about intracacies that few
>people who _do_ use it do.
"L" for litre? Here we use a simple lowecase "l" ...

"B" for byte, possibly to differentiate from "b" for bit.

                                            Andreas

PS It seems to be receeding, but a couple of years ago "Kb" for kilobyte was
extremely widespread here around. It's yet another example that the human
mind prefers irrgularity, since the same people who wrote that unfailingly
wrote "km" for "kilometre".

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