Talk:Kilometre

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Contents

[edit] Page Layout

This page needs some better organisation - the first tow sections have a lot of duplication. --jazzle 09:26, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling

According to Google, kilometer is 5 times more common than kilometre. Is there an official standard for the spelling in English?

One is the UK spelling, (-tre) the other is the US spelling (-ter). Like Centre vs Center, Colour vs Color, etc.

So then, what's the standard spelling for Wikipedia? I've always assumed that it's American English, since there are more Americans and the site is based in America and whatnot. However, why are bot users going around and changing everything to UK English spelling? Is there any justification for that besides the pain that English people have without their beloved colours and centres and whatnot? I'd like to know what the Wiki standard is before these changes go any further. Or farther. Or whatever. --Carl 04:14, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Here is the policy you are after. For as long as you Americans keep the silly Imperial units, you have to live with our way of spelling SI units. :-) — Danc 14:17, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
There is no official spelling for English: each country follows its own standard. For the most part these standards are similar with one exception. The exception is, of course, American spelling. Call it English English spelling, call it British English spelling, I call it Commonwealth English spelling but this is how the reast of us spell. Sure there are more of you than there are of us ... but by no means overwhelmingly so ("us" includes British, Irish, Sth Africans, Kiwis, Aussies, Canadians, etc.).
As Danc, shows you'd be wrong to assume that American spelling is the standard for Wikipedia. Why are Americans on the one hand shunning the metric system and then on the otherhand respelling it? How this for a fair solution: let's stick with the more (and less ambiguous: note parking meter) spellings rather than the Americanised (yes, Americanised) versions ... at least for the metric system?
So what would be the justification for changing everything to American English spelling? What besides the pain that American people have without their beloved colors and centers and whatnot? By the way Danc, the Americans don't use the silly Imperial units but the similar and just-as-silly US customary units. Jimp 6Oct05
More people use Commonwealth ENglish spelling than American English spelling.

[edit] slang term "k's" ?

I've often heard people (and myself) use "K's" (pronounced 'kays') as a slang term for kilometres. ie "Town is 20 k's down the road" . Do people think this warrants adding as a slang term along with clicks (which I've only seen used by US soldiers in books or movies)? - SimonLyall 00:47, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It is only spelled or also written. IMHO non useful, to me is not enciclopedicAnyFile 21:55, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Hi, sorry I don't quite understand what you mean by "only spelled or also written". Saying "kays" is very common in speech and does crop up in writing. Have a look at these google searches: [1] , [2] , [3] . SimonLyall 22:59, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I was asking if it is used in writing AnyFile 20:46, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Yes it is, see the google links. Some of the usage are in articles rather than just quotes from diologue. Authors are from Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand. Kays is a normal term in english speaking metric countries. SimonLyall 02:09, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
In Oz, merely "K" is also used. "The town is 20 kay down the down"
Klicks is also used by civilians in Canada, where road signs and speedometers use kilometers. I don't think they use "K's". -- Curps 02:00, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Are the terms "k" and "klick" used in any other languages? In Finland, people would look at me funny if I tried to use them. They wouldn't have a clue what I was on about. Finnish uses "kilo" as shorthand for the kilogram and "kilsa" for the kilometre. — JIP | Talk 05:28, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation

I pronounce "kilometre" with the stress on the first syllable, and so do a significant minority (though admittedly it is a minority) of people I know. Is there a prescribed "correct" pronunciation? The section about this in the article itself seems to brook no dissent! Loganberry 23:47, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Per dictionary.com I have removed the claim that pronouncing it 'ki-LOM-i-ter' is incorrect. Despite the pronunciation's origins, it is entrenched in the USA (first attested to "before 1830", and preferred by ~70% of the prescriptionist American Heritage Dictionary's usage panel). — Saaber 22:22, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] various reverted edits

Gene Nygaard just reverted some edits of mine about which I'd like some clarification. 1) Surely, stating that it is an SI unit makes sense in the introduction. Just like saying that the other units it is compared to are imperial. One cannot assume something like that is known. Suppose it were compared to, say, Chinese units (I haven't a clue what they use there), then I'd like to know what they are, so I can look it up as a frame of reference. 2) Nothing major, but the word kilometre is indeed often misused to designate kilometre/hour and I suppose that merits a mention, especially since it is wrong. DirkvdM 19:25, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

I think I tried to make a partial reversion when I was half awake. Some of it needed to be changed, but I didn't get it right either. I have no objection to identifying the kilometer as a metric unit.
For some reason I though you had taken out the American spelling, but you hadn't. It was probably the moving of the symbol to place it before the American spelling. However, since the symbol is the same no matter how the word is spelled out in full, it should follow both spellings.
Yes, I think I was half asleep too :) . DirkvdM 09:21, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
I do object to classifying yards and the like as "imperial" units. They are never called imperial units in the United States, for example (that adjective is reserved for the best the British could come up with for a decimal system in the 1820, taking something which had been various folumes equal to eight pounds of whatever, and making it the volume of ten pounds of water, and the multiples and submultiples of the imperial gallon). Better would be English units. However, some would quibble about that as well, and—most importantly—there is no reason to identify them as part of any system at all, since this article deals with the kilometer.
Being too lazy to say the "per hour" in a colloqial context is something quite different from inventing new slang terms for these units. I don't think it is significant enough to bother metioning, and if it is mentioned it should be in a separate paragraph.
Furthermore, you shouldn't mix spelled out words and mathematical operators. Use "kilometers per hour" or "km/h", not "kilometers/hour". Gene Nygaard 02:55, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Agreed on all point except one, my first point hereabove. Mentioning the system of the units it is compared to makes too much sense. This is largely inspired by a fight a gainst systemic bias (or is that systematic bias?) in Wikipedia. Related to this is that it shouldn't be assumed that people know what we are talking about. I don't even know what exactly is meant by all these units, so imagine how it will look to someone from, say, Mongolia (or whatever). Is there really no name for the system one can agree upon? Or is it that there is no one system, so that can be linked to? The best article I can find is Imperial unit (English unit is too broad). So instead of deleting all links to it (!) wouldn't it make more sense to deal with this in that article? Maybe even rename it? Another thing is that the word 'mile' is ambiguous. There are (and have been) many definitions of the mile. Which makes it questionable if that unit should be used at all, but I won't go that far. But it does necessitate stating which mile is meant. Once agian, one cannot assume too much about the background of the reader. DirkvdM 09:21, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

How about Imperial/U.S. customary units i.e. [[Imperial unit|Imperial]]/[[U.S. customary units]]? Jimp 6Oct05

[edit] km

Why isn't the abbreviation Km?

That is they way it is. A small "k" for Kilo, see SI prefix and Kilo. - SimonLyall 11:59, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

That's exactly what I was going to ask... Albo NL 17:20, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Page moves

I've pulled this page back from Kilometer to reconnect its history and because the move was inappropriate in the first place. Refer to the Wikipedia Manual of Style. --ToobMug 21:49, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] U.S. roadsigns

"The USA is gradually kilometerising its road signage". Is it? I hadn't heard. Is this actually the case? KILOMETERISING - what a dreadful word; a classic example of verb misuse. Arcturus 22:38, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Hey, like Calvin say, verbing wierds language. —johndburger 02:48, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Over the past few years I have travelled about 10,000 miles on the US interstate system in the midwest and west of the Mississippi. I do see mi/km signs appearing where roads have been repaired and old signs are replaced with new. I don't know whether it is a decision made by state or nat'l gov't but the km is becoming apparent in the system. MarlaB 22:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lenght

It states in the article that 1 km equals 0.621 miles. Wouldn't that mean that 1 mile equals 1.610305958 km? In that case there's something wrong because 1 mile = 1.609 km. I know its a small difference, but if you guys calculated all the rest with the wrong numbers, eventually it would add up... Albo NL 17:32, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

The yard is defined as 0.9144 m. Which makes the mile exactly 1.609344 km. Thus 1 kilometre is about 0.621371192 mi. which you can round off to 0.621 mi. Your error is due to this rounding off. Yes, you're right to point out that these errors would add up. Each time you do a new calculation it's best to go back to the exact figures. Jɪmp 04:13, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Longer

whats the thing one longer then kilometer (if there is one) like meter * 1000 = kilometer kilometer * 1000 = ?

1000 km is 1 Mm (one Megameter).  See also SI prefix. — Monedula 09:03, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed WikiProject

Right now the content related to the various articles relating to measurement seems to be rather indifferently handled. This is not good, because at least 45 or so are of a great deal of importance to Wikipedia, and are even regarded as Vital articles. On that basis, I am proposing a new project at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Measurement to work with these articles, and the others that relate to the concepts of measurement. Any and all input in the proposed project, including indications of willingness to contribute to its work, would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your attention. John Carter 20:54, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] International Usage

This section starts off with "The United States of America and the United Kingdom are the only two developed countries that have considered changing their road signs from miles to kilometres..."

What about Canada? We ONLY use km/h signs here... This page shows some examples of Canadian signage: [4] 99.252.30.48 13:10, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Changed wording, not sure how it eneded up like that. - SimonLyall 00:50, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of other SI length units

The following appears on this article, and other articles for SI units of length:

nanometre <<< micrometre <<< millimetre < centimetre < decimetre < metre < decametre < hectometre < kilometre <<< megametre

I think this list should be made using a template, or it should be removed. I would create the template myself, if I had experience with the MediaWiki template language, but I don't know if this list is really desirable on every length unit article. If the list is desirable, I think it is more appropriate to show it in a box (maybe on Template:Unit of length box?), with a better description. --Eduardo Habkost (talk) 22:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)


I did it: I have created Template:SI units of length. If the list of length units is supposed to appear on the many articles, at least it is on a template. If the community thinks the list of units on each article is not relevant, the template may be proposed for deletion. If this template is considered useful, maybe it could be expanded into a SI units template, referencing all SI base units and derived units that have a wikipedia article. I suggest further discussion to be done on the template talk page. --Eduardo Habkost (talk) 23:51, 5 March 2008 (UTC)