On Jun 18, 2007, at 5:43 PM, Gerhard Fiedler wrote:

> I think the spelling "metre" is more latin-based

we owe the obscure prefixes to latin and greek too, don't we?
It's not like they picked "elegant" prefixes (centa, centi ?)
when they devised the metric system.  (personally, I think
mere vowel changes to indicate the sign of the exponent would
have been a TERRIBLE idea, given differences in vowel usage
and pronunciation in different languages.  "deca" ought to be
"deka", even in english...)

BillW
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