Talk:Annum

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[edit] Masculine or neuter?

Does anybody happen to know how annus came to be neuter in this scientific usage? Google suggests that it actually is called annum here, but I wonder... It is definitely and solely masculine in classical Latin, and as far as I can see, in medieval Latin as well. So I suppose it must be fairly recent? Maybe taken from the accusative case, as in per annum? T.a.k. 4 July 2005 21:02 (UTC)

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, per annum first appeared in the early seventeenth century, and is derived from the Latin accusative case of annus. However, my knowledge of Latin is limited, so I'm not sure how that relates to being neuter. — Joe Kress 5 July 2005 07:41 (UTC)

It's not neuter. It's masculine. Masculine accusative has the same suffix as neuter nominative. Woodwalker 12:58, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ma Mega Annum: Million years or Million years AGO?

I am trying to find out whether Ma means million years or million years ago. The definition here says its 'million years' but i always learnt it meant 'million years ago'. Which one is correct? -- 130.223.103.212 15:25, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

"Mega" means "million;" "Annum" means "year." Obviously, prima facie, "mega-annum" (Ma) means "million years." However, in an appropriate context we may interpret it to mean "million years ago." Be careful not to confuse the term with mya, which does mean "million years ago." -- FP <talk><edits> 05:02, August 7, 2005 (UTC)
Nothing should be implicit when it refers to units, IMHO. If "ago" is included it means "date". If it is not included, it means "age". Jclerman 12:07, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Sorry Jclerman, but as you said nothing should be implicit in metrology. If "ago" is not included then Ma is a quantity of time (aka duration). To get a date from that you have to nail down one end of the quantity, i.e. '3.5 Ma B.P.' (where present is defined as 1950-01-01) or '15 d from today'.

[edit] Ka

Hi. Contrary to the assertion of Georgia Guy, Ka is a commonly used abbreviation in the scientific literature, particularly by earth scientists and geophysicists working on time scales of 10^3 to 10^5 years. As per Georgia Guys request, I submit proof that Ka is a commonly used term. These are the first ten references from a search in the ISI Web of Science indexing service that contain "Ka" in their title, abstract or keywords that use Ka in the sense of kilo-annum. The search retrieved some 14,000 articles. This selection of papers represented 10 of the first 15 hits (the other five used Ka in a different sense, for example, as k-alpha in x-ray spectroscopy), suggesting that over 9300 of the hits used Ka in the sense suggested in this article. Since the term follows logically from Ma and Ga (also commonly used terms), it should stay here and not be transfered to Millennium (although perhaps it could be included in Millennium).

Channell, J. E. T., 2006. Late Brunhes polarity excursions (Mono Lake, Laschamp, Iceland Basin and Pringle Falls) recorded at ODP Site 919 (Irminger Basin). Earth And Planetary Science Letters, 244(1-2): 378-393.
Clarke, M. L. and Rendell, H. M., 2006. Effects of storminess, sand supply and the North Atlantic Oscillation on sand invasion and coastal dune accretion in western Portugal. Holocene, 16(3): 341-355.
Cucci, L., 2005. Geology versus myth: the Holocene evolution of the Sybaris Plain. Annals Of Geophysics, 48(6): 1017-1033.
Li, S. H. and Sun, J. M., 2006. Optical dating of Holocene dune sands from the Hulun Buir Desert, northeastern China. Holocene, 16(3): 457-462.
Maher, B. A. and Hu, M. Y., 2006. A high-resolution record of Holocene rainfall variations from the western Chinese Loess Plateau: antiphase behaviour of the African/Indian and East Asian summer monsoons. Holocene, 16(3): 309-319.
Pisias, N. G., Heusser, L., Heusser, C., Hostetler, S. W., Mix, A. C. and Weber, M., 2006. Radiolaria and pollen records from 0 to 50 ka at ODP Site 1233: continental and marine climate records from the Southeast Pacific. Quaternary Science Reviews, 25(5-6): 455-473.
Reid, E. and Thomas, M. F., 2006. A chronostratigraphy of mid- and late-Holocene slope evolution: Creagan a' Chaorainn, Northern Highlands, Scotland. Holocene, 16(3): 429-444.
Sinha, R., Smykatz-Kloss, W., Stuben, D., Harrison, S. P., Berner, Z. and Kramar, U., 2006. Late Quaternary palaeoclimatic reconstruction from the lacustrine sediments of the Sambhar playa core, Thar Desert margin, India. Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology, 233(3-4): 252-270.
Turney, C. S. M., Kershaw, A. P., James, S., Branch, N., Cowley, J., Fifield, L. K., :Jacobsen, G. and Moss, P., 2006. Geochemical changes recorded in Lynch's Crater, Northeastern Australia, over the past 50 ka. Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology, 233(3-4): 187-203.
Zhang, Z. H., Zhao, M. X., Eglinton, G., Lu, H. Y. and Huang, C. Y., 2006. Leaf wax lipids as paleovegetational and paleoenvironmental proxies for the Chinese Loess Plateau over the last 170 kyr. Quaternary Science Reviews, 25(5-6): 575-594.

Rickert 00:44, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Rickert didn't specify if his search was case-sensitive. Checking the articles that are accessible, it is clear the usage is ka (as it should be), not Ka. Urhixidur 01:56, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merging articles

I would propose to merge this article with the articles Mya (unit), Bya and Gya. The suffixes do not make any difference to what the article is really about: the use of the unit annum in science. One article will be much clearer than three or four. We can have redirects on the other pages to cover the lot. Woodwalker 12:57, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree.Rolinator 10:07, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] annum or annus?

Are we sure that annum is the correct form? As mentioned above, annum is the nominative, and it would be far more regular to use the nominative, annus. The American Heritage Dictionary lists annus [1]. Unfortunately I do not have a copy of the ISO's Quantities and Units. Lesgles (talk) 05:22, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, except that the the expression is not "annum", but per annum. Per is a preposition that governs the accusative case. A simple English analogy might be "He is a man", but "I did this for him". JackofOz 01:40, 16 March 2007 (UTC)