Morgan Olsson wrote:
> 
> Speaking of units, I recently read an american paper and there are two units I am not sure about, can somebody fill in:
> 
> mils =   (sounds like milli inch??)

Commonly used for some building materials (thickness of plastic, etc.)

> microns =   (micrometer? (µm))

Old-fashioned term still in common usage.

More off topic (Morgan's  micrometer reference made me think of this):
how do people in different parts of the world pronounce "kilometer"?

In North America, it seems to be pronounced 2 ways:
 1.  ki-law-meter, accent on the second syllable (most common)
 2.  ki-low-meter, accent on the first syllable

I tend to go with #2, since (using the micrometer example), a
mi-craw-meter (the instrument) is used to measure a mic-row-meter (the
distance).

Ergo, a ki-law-meter (if there was such an instrument) would measure a
ki-low-meter.

Not earth-shattering important, but neither is this whole thread, eh?

--Matt