I could be "under exposed" but I am not familiar with that spelling of laser in America. But it would not surprise me if it does exist. There are numerous engineers in America that cannot sppell. :o) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Russell McMahon" To: "Microcontroller discussion list - Public." Sent: Monday, June 18, 2007 1:40 AM Subject: Re: [OT] Units rant >>>> To put things even worse, the pupils in a 9th grade public school >>>> here >>>> in Sweden does not know how many cm (centimeters) is a m (meter). > > 1. It doesn't matter, as a cm is a unit from the pit of hell and > has no place in an engineers toolbox ( notwithstanding the fact that I > use them frequently :-) ). > > 2. There is no such thing as a centimeter * in Sweden :-) - only in > The US of A where they think that even the names of official > international units can be respelt ** different like coz they don't > like the way they are really spelt**. > > Long ago my son spelt LASER as Lazer. I said that that was incorrect. > He said that that's how the Americans spell it and so that's how it > was these days (maybe not quite in those words). I disabused him of > the notion that an acronym could be respelled (let alone > decapitalised) to suit some US whim. He concurred. It's quite possible > that that was the last 'argument' with him that I ever won :-). Maybe > the only one. I didn't point out that it was (AFAIK) a US acronym in > the first place. > > > Russell > > > * Real life: metre > USAism: meter > > Being a metre matter as it's made, no doubt, from forms which give us > other words. > With meter we can expect meterication and its ilk. > > > ** Anglo-pedants *** corrigenda: respelled, spelled, > > > *** eg Jinx > > > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist