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

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?)


        *Muke!
[1] I had actually written 'right' here.  Awk.

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