On Fri, 16 May 2008 02:09:11 -0700, Erik Max Francis <max@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
>Tim Little wrote:
>> On 2008-05-16, Mike Van Pelt <mvp@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>> Yeah. I haven't seen Iron Man yet, but similar lines of
>>> thought ran through my head at the end of the first "Back to
>>> the Future" movie, where it seems 1.2 Jiggawatt <sic>
>> There is no "<sic>". That spelling was never used in the movie, and
>> the pronunciation they used of "gigawatt" was officially correct in
>> the US.
>"Was"? It's never been "officially correct" as far as can be reasonably
>understood. (What determines what is "officially correct" pronunciation
>of words in the United States, anyway?) Hence why that pronunciation
>has been a joke among scientifically inclined people since the movie
>came out. It's not like Americans haven't been giggling ("jiggling"?)
>at that pronunciation since the movie came out -- in 1985.
A very tiny minority of Americans, and it's not like much larger American
minorities haven't been just plain wrong about much bigger things from
time to time.
But, just out of curiosity, how do you pronounce, "gigantic"? As in,
"gigantic number of Watts", of which "gigawatt" is basically just a
formalized and rigoriously defined abbreviation.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*John.Schillin@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
* for success" *
*661-718-0955 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
|
