28 May
2010
28 May
'10
5:44 p.m.
From: arcarlini at iee.org
Sent: Friday, May 28, 2010 2:52 PM
Andrew Burton [aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk] wrote:
> Decimeter... haven't heard that in years.
There's decametre too (another now obsolete unit).
Never
heard centameter so I've no idea if that exists.
That's hektameter[1]. The names of fractionals are loosely derived from
Latin; the names of larger units are loosely derived from Greek.
/ Latin * Greek
10 decem deka
100 centum hekaton
1000 mille khilioi ("kh" = the letter _chi_)
Thing is, the Greek 100 is a compound, _he-katon_. The second part is
directly cognate with Latin _centum_, while the first part means "1".
[1] Not to be confused with "hexameter", which is 6 feet in a measure.
I could wax poetic about that.
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.PDPplanet.org/
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/