On Sun, 20 Jul 2003 12:21:18 -0700, Watson A.Name - 'Watt Sun'
put finger to keyboard and composed:

In article ,
mentioned...
On Sun, 20 Jul 2003 08:50:43 +1000, Franc Zabkar
wrote:


I would think the most sensible pronunciation would be "giga" as this
prefix is derived from the Greek word, "gigas", meaning "giant".

How do the Greeks pronounce "gigas"? The "jig-a" pronounciation
for giga seems to be in more-or-less in keeping with "gigantic".

Are there any hard-"g" English words with the "giant" meaning?

Not that anything is going to change common usage! ;-)


The NIST page doesn't show the pronunciation. Here's the URL:
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/prefixes.html

But see he http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?giga-
and he
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionar...onary&va=giga-
Generally speaking, the first listing in the dictionary is the
preferred pronunciation.

My Concise Oxford dictionary lists both pronunciations for "giga" as
being acceptable, although here in Australia absolutely nobody uses
the "jiga" form. My dictionary also lists both pronunciations for
kilometre, although the ki-lometter version is "disputed", for obvious
reasons.

And the following URL talks ad nauseum about the pronunciation, but
all that is moot since the reference publications from NBS (now NIST)
(which are presumably derived from the SI international stds), and
such pubs as the U.S. Navy and ASME give the prounciation as jiga.
http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/2001-12/msg0037637.html

I'm not sure that one could consider any US based metric reference to
be authoritative. Apart from Liberia and Myanmar (Burma), the USA is
the only other country that retains the old Imperial system of weights
and measures. I reckon you guys ought to pronounce *our* system the
way *we* do. :-)

Bob Masta
tech(AT)daqarta(DOT)com


- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 's' from my address when replying by email.