Talk:Shaku

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I'm adding a link to Japanese unit. Jimp 23Oct05

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[edit] Metre vs. meter

I didn't expect to this to be much of an issue but rather than revert Gene's edit again, I'll pose the question here: Why not spell metre in this article in a more widely used form? i.e. as metre rather than the predominantly USA spelling of meter

Gene, I appreciate your link to the Manual of Style on National varieties of English, and I'm sorry if I'm being dense here but I fail to see anything there that would suggest an American English spelling is the recommended form for an English article on a Japanese unit of measure.

Also please note the spelling of the title of the Wikipedia article on the unit of measure itself. On that note, I'll suggest that we simply abbreviate to m in this article. --Ds13 22:43, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm the one who changed it to "metre". I figured "Why go to all the trouble of writing '[[Metre|meters]]' when '[[metre]]s' would do?'" But I agree with Ds13, let's simply use "[[Metre|m]]" and whilst we're at it, why not reduce some of the repetition in the following?

Since 1891, the shaku has been defined to equal 10/33 meter 
(approximately 30.3 cm, or 11.93 inches), or 3.3 shaku to the meter.

How about this?

Since 1891, the shaku has been defined as 10/33 m (approximately 30.3 cm or 11.93 inches).

Jimp 25Oct05

The rules are quite simple; either American English or other varieties of English are acceptable; don't mess with them without good reason. If an article deals with something geographical or political dealing with a particular English-speaking country, that usually a pretty good reason to use that country's spellings, etc. But Japan isn't an English-speaking country; the field is wide-open. Don't be getting into needless edit wars.

Note that the spelling in a Wikipedia article title is never a relevant argument in making determinations of the national variety of English to use. Some of them go each way; some have flip-flopped over time (notably gasoline/petrol, which for a while even had both in the title). Gene Nygaard 13:34, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Jimp, I don't agree with your repetition argument. Too many people just have too much difficulty dealing with common fractions. The realtionship "1 meter = 3.3 shaku" is the simplest way to express this definition exactly in a terminating decimal fraction, and in this case a simple, easy-to-remember one with only two digits. That needs to stay; I don't see any crying need to throw out any of the others, either. Gene Nygaard 13:38, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

For whatever it is worth, note also that the current reading of the MoS is

• Spell out source units in text. Use digits and unit symbols for converted values and for measurements in tables. For example, "a pipe 100 millimetres (4 in) in diameter and 10 miles (16 km) long".

This isn't followed much in actual use, and I may bring it up for discussion as a standalone proposition on the talk page; I'm pretty sure it entered in a reworking of this whole section. Gene Nygaard 13:49, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

My approach is to use the most common spelling, assuming it won't cause confusion (which it wouldn't here), and I thought we could all agree that metre is the most common English spelling in the world for this unit. But I appreciate your clarification, Gene.

I take this to mean that if the article was first written using the word metre, you would have left it alone? But since you were the first to use the word in this article (I think), and you spelled it as meter, we'll just leave it at that. That's a reasonable approach, also.

I'm still a fan of abbreviating something as common as metre to m or kilometre to km, since the beauty of a hyperlinked encyclopedia is that if you don't understand a common abbreviation like m immediately, you can 1) hover your mouse over it for a brief explanation, or 2) click to get the fully story. --Ds13 19:27, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

You make a couple of fair points, Gene. Yes, you're right about Wiki's policy wrt spelling. And, yes, I guess not everybody will instantly realise that 33/10 shaku = 1 metre is the same as 3.3 shaku = 1 metre. Okay let's leave it how it is. Jimp 26Oct05

[edit] Merge to Japanese unit

On a different note. Would it be wise to merge this and Koku to Japanese unit?

Jimp 25Oct05

Discussion of both is combined at Talk:Japanese unit which is also the link in the mergeinto tag. Gene Nygaard 13:12, 25 October 2005 (UTC)