In article <95fapr$1li$1@news-hrz.uni-duisburg.de>,
  sb463ba@l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de (Georg Bauhaus) wrote:
> Howard W. LUDWIG (howard.w.ludwig@lmco.com) wrote:
> : I would expect that a German would tend to capitalize the first
letter
> : of unit names, because unit names are nouns and all nouns in German
> : begin with a capital letter.
>
> This assumption, though plausible, is just one, and another,
> leading to the opposite conclusion, is living in a land of
> bureaucratic correctness, Germany, will give you NO
> permission to even think so :-)
>
> : In German it is totally appropriate to start the unit names with a
> : capital letter.
>
> No, no, it is not, at least in a technical context.
> You will hear some rather impolite remarks if you do.

Yes, capitalization is appropriate in German.  It is only the symbols
for SI units which are international in nature (even the same Greek or
Roman letters in languages which do not use either of those alphabets).

The spelled-out words follow the general rules of the language in which
they are used.  The units are capitalized in German, like other nouns.
They should not be capitalized in English or French.  But French
retains the accent mark in amp�re; English generally does not.
They can be spelled meter (American English, or Norwegian, for example)
or metre (most other English) or m�tre (French) or Meter (German), or
the Italians can spell the prefix chilo- (it still has the symbol k).

One result of these local variations is that in technical use, the use
of numerals and symbols all the time is preferred.  The symbols remain
the same in any language; a "Kilogram" is kg in German, and
a "kilojoule" is kJ in English; both are also the same in any other
language.

--
Gene Nygaard
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Gene_Nygaard/


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