Talk:Miles per hour

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So, uh, does that mean I'm not allowed to say "the train inched along at one mile per hour"? Stan 23:53 Mar 14, 2003 (UTC)

Grammatically you can say it, but the unit of measurement is miles plural. The definition isn't singular, and this is a stub about definition. Mile is similarly used as meaning plural in language (eg, some say 'how many mile did you travel?'), but the correct plural is miles. It is the same, to take an unconnected example, with the TV Show Charlie's Angels. You could have a Charlie's angel, if referring to one of the women, but the definitionary title is plural and could not be written as Charlie's Angel. STÓD/ÉÍRE 00:00 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)

Woo, fine point, but I'll buy it. Stan 00:49 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)

"Miles Per Hour" is against Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization), does not make sense to me, and looks bad in my opinion, anyway. In addition to it creating double redirects. So I'm moving it back to "miles per hour". -- Egil 07:16 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)

PS: Turns out is used to be "mile per hour". I'll leave it at "miles per hour", which works for me, although I could also live with "mile per hour". SI rules would not apply here, presumably. -- Egil 07:56 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)

I've edited the "only used in the US," because as far as I'm aware, the UK still posts speed limits in miles per hour, despite using metric for most other things. Please correct me if this information is out of date. --Delirium 02:21, Sep 19, 2003 (UTC)

Perhaps we should start an article on List of countries that have not adopted the SI unit yet. If the list contains only USA for the next few weeks, then delete it. Kowloonese 05:23, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Truth is, there are apparently a few countries, notably former British colonies and the British Commonwealth, which are not completely metric. In Canada, grocery stores sell things by the 100g, but go to Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers where they still advertise that you will drop pounds and inches. Likewise, there are several countries that still use the Calorie (kcal or Cal) instead of the kilojoule (kJ) for the energy content of foods.

Maybe a run-down of these would be in order, listing what's not yet metric and where, and possibly why. –radiojon 03:09, 2004 Apr 2 (UTC)

It has not been the British Commonwealth since 1949. It is now the Commonwealth of Nations. Hu 01:01, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Abbreviation

I noticed that my recent edit was reverted, where I placed greater emphasis of "mph" over "mi/h". The facts are thus:

The "OED" marks "mi" as an American abbreviation for "mile". The only internationally accepted abbreviation of "mile" (that I am aware of) is "m", which obviously cannot be used due to the possible confusion with the metre.
The abbreviation "mph" is standard, and I have never seen "mi/h" used anywhere, not even in the United States. (See Principle of Least Astonishment.)
The convention of using solidi and indices to express derived units is taken from the SI. The Imperial units, and hence also the American units, do not use this.

So while some Americans who want to minimize the Imperial and metric differences may advocate "mi/h", it is by no means preferable, even formally.

Wereon 16:38, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That wasn't hard, was it? -- Cyrius|✎ 17:02, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hmm. Unlike SI units, there are no authoritative definitions of non-metric units and symbols. However, the US Government style manual lists abbreviations with mile as 'mi' and mile per hour as 'mi/h'. There is no listing for mph. The same abbreviations are in the Federal Highway Administration guide and they do make use of them e.g. http://www.tfhrc.gov/humanfac/01103/how2use.htm. The abbreviation 'mi' is also quoted in NIST Handbook 44 and the NIST Guide to SI Units lists both 'mi' and 'mi/h'. I can't give an example but from quotes on the FHWA site, I would not be surprised to see 'MI' used on US road signs.

The mile article right here on Wikipedia also quotes 'mi' as an abbreviation. To take your points in turn:

1. I don't believe that there is an 'internationally accepted abbreviation' for mile. As you say, the letter 'm' is already taken by metre. To extend the point about internationalisation, abbreviations that depend on language cause problems. For example, the italian abbreviation for 'miles per hour' would be 'mao', not 'mph'.

2. If by standard you mean mph is the 'most frequent' abbreviation, then I agree. Since there is no standards authority for non-metric units, the term 'standard' cannot wholly mean 'officially sanctioned'. But the examples above show that the US government sometimes uses 'mi/h'. If you do some research you will also find some other users.

3. You are correct to say that SI practice uses '/' and many authors/styleguides simply use the same devices. However, these devices were not invented by the SI committees, they merely inherited language-independent practice that is hundreds of years old. It is not correct to say that non-metric units do not use such devices. But it is true to say that they sometimes use other devices. For example, division is sometimes shown as a 'p' (mph) and sometimes not present at all (psi).

I have no particular conclusion, but I just wanted to share my lack of certainty on this issue. Bobblewik (talk) 17:57, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] google:

What's the advantage of using

22/15 =[[google:{{mile}}/{{subst:foot}}/3600|1.4667]] [[foot per second|feet per second]]

22/15 =[[google:1 mi (2 km)/0.3048/3600|1.4667]] feet per second

over

22/15 = 1.4667 [[foot per second|feet per second]]

22/15 = 1.4667 feet per second

In other words, why use a special wikilink syntax, two specialized templates (used only on this page and on Knot (speed)), and a piped link, just to link to a search page with no results? I can't see any reason for it. If you're worried about editors' being able to easily check the math, why not just use a comment?

22/15 = 1.4667 [[foot per second|feet per second]]

If there's no reasonable objection, I'll make the change and list the {{mile}} and {{foot}} templates on WP:TFD.