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Bill[_47_]

wrote:
On Sunday, 6 April 2014 01:56:32 UTC+1, -MIKE- wrote:

I'm glad I picked up on the Canadian accent, because the guy kept saying
"mil" when referring to his measurements. It wasn't until he showed the
reading on his gauge that I realized he was talking millimeters and not
thousandths of an inch.
Mil, short for milli. Milli just means "one-one thousandth of". It needs context to fully clarify.

In the UK millimetres were abbreviated (when spoken) to "milli" whilst "mil" referred to 1/1000 of an inch. This is according to my grandad who was in the trade up until the 1950s or so. I have no idea what the it is now, but I am pretty certain it's all metric, so mil or milli would refer to millimetres.

Like Swingman said, there are about 6400 mils in a full revolution. It
was explained to me that the idea was to *avoid fractions* out in the
field. Remember the pre-calculator days?