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

On Thu, Nov 29, 2001 at 10:39:31AM -0500, Muke Tever 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'.
>
> By "two parts" I suppose that means "degrees" and "Celsius"; 'degree' is just
> the name of the unit and 'Celsius' an adjective saying what scale the unit is on
> (because degrees are used also to measure angles, in the Fahrenheit scale, and
> some people will even say weird things like "degrees kelvin").
>
> As for the symbol attached, it probably doesn't count separating angle and
> temperature degrees as it's the same symbol ;p
>
> (My question: Is it only because we write[1] things like "99°F" that we say "99
> degrees Fahrenheit" and not "99 Fahrenheit degrees"?  Or is it foreign
> influence?  Or both?)
There's a Suzanne Vega song called "99.9 Fahrenheit Degrees;" that's the
only time I've ever heard anyone put the Fahrenheit first, and I've always
wondered why she chose to (I guess I don't wonder much why everyone else
puts it second).

--
Eric Christopherson, a.k.a. Contrarian Conlanger Rakko ^_^

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