[SI-LIST] Re: Language conventions

  • From: "Larry Barnes" <larry.barnes@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <JK100005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <Andrew.Ingraham@xxxxxx>,<si-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 14:47:35 -0800

All,

And the international conference that established these conventions can =
be found at=20

http://www.bipm.fr/enus/3_SI/si.html

Larry


-----Original Message-----
From: Knighten, Jim L [mailto:JK100005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2003 3:09 PM
To: Andrew.Ingraham@xxxxxx; si-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [SI-LIST] Re: Language conventions



Guys,

The IEEE Information for Authors (the IEEE standard referred to below) =
can
be found on the web at
http://www.ieee.org/organizations/pubs/transactions/auinfo97.pdf.  You =
will
see that it supports capitalizing units based on proper names and uses =
"m"
for milli and M for "mega," etc.  This is the standard for IEEE =
publications
and I see it as the standard to use (unless you have some special unit =
or
symbol).

Jim


Jim Knighten, Ph.D.
Teradata, a Division of NCR             http://www.ncr.com
17095 Via Del Campo
San Diego, CA 92127
USA
Tel: 858-485-2537
Fax: 858-485-3788
jim.knighten@xxxxxxx

 -----Original Message-----
From:   Ingraham, Andrew [mailto:Andrew.Ingraham@xxxxxx]=20
Sent:   Friday, April 04, 2003 2:01 PM
To:     si-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject:        [SI-LIST] Re: Language conventions

> I seem to remember from my college text books that it mattered if you
> were=20
> talking about AC or DC voltages/currents/etc.  Capitalized letters
> meant=20
> you were talking about DC values and non-capitalized letters meant AC=20
> values.
=20
I remember something similar too ... except that this applied to the
variables v(t), i(t), V, I, etc. ... but not the units.

I believe that organizations such as the IEEE have published standards
for things like this.  But I do not have a copy.

Personally, I'm fairly flexible, except for a few units.  Specifically,
I believe that a lower-case "s" is correct for seconds, whereas
upper-case "S" means Siemens (inverse of Ohms).  Engineers frequently
make that mistake, by writing that some delay is so-many "nS", or
nano-Siemens.

Also, I prefer using "m" for milli and "M" for mega.  I think that might
be official.  Again, people often write things like 50mHz (which would
be a very low frequency), meaning megahertz (or should I say
MegaHertz?).

I have also heard that it's correct to use upper-case for units that are
based on someone's proper name, and lower-case otherwise.  That doesn't
work for "voltage" or "amperage" (which IS stretching things a bit), nor
for the milli/Mega distinction, but does seem to work for many others. =20

In junior high school, a teacher once said to use lower-case for the
Latin prefixes (milli, centi), and upper-case for the Greek(?) prefixes
(Kilo, Mega) ... just because the former prefixes make things smaller
and the latter make them larger.

Along similar lines ... should you use a space between a number and the
unit that comes after it?  Is it "5V" or "5 V"?  Or "5-V", like the
"2-Watt" example you gave?

Andy



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