Saturday, February 4, 2012

Origin and spelling

In France and the English-speaking countries that are predominantly metric, the spelling tonne is widespread. This is about accurate in the United Kingdom; however, the ton acclimated above-mentioned to metrication is agnate to 2,240 pounds (1,016 kg) (in the US this ton is usually referred to as the continued ton) and this is so abutting to the tonne that some humans draw little acumen and abide to use the old spelling. For example, even the Guinness Book of World Records accepts metrication after appearance this by alteration the spelling. For the United States, metric ton is the name for this assemblage acclimated and recommended by NIST.5 In the US an amateur acknowledgment of a ton about consistently refers to a abbreviate ton of 2,000 pounds (907 kg).

Ton and tonne are both acquired from a Germanic chat in accepted use in the North Sea breadth back the Middle Ages (cf. Old English and Old Frisian tunne, Old Top German and Medieval Latin tunna, German and French tonne) to baptize a ample cask, or tun.6 A abounding tun, continuing about a accent high, could calmly counterbalance a tonne. The old English wine barillet aggregate altitude accepted as a tun is abutting to a metric tonne in weight as it defines about 954 litres which for abounding frequently acclimated liquids (aqueous solutions) approximates to as abounding kilograms.

The spelling tonne pre-dates the addition of the SI in 1960; it has been acclimated with this acceptation in France back 1842,7 if there were no metric prefixes for multiples of 106 and above, and is now acclimated as the accepted spelling for the metric accumulation altitude in a lot of English-speaking countries.891011 In the United States, the assemblage was originally referred to application the French words millier or tonneau,12 but these agreement are now obsolete.1 The Imperial and US accepted units commensurable to the tonne are both spelled ton in English, admitting they alter in mass. Pronunciation of tonne (the chat acclimated in the United Kingdom) and ton is usually identical.

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