And to further the anecdotal evidence:

With exception for one engineer that pronounced it jiga,
giga (pronounced like giggle) cycles per second is the only way
I heard it pronounced in the labs in the '60s. In the '70s when
Hertz became the fashion, it has always been "giga (pronounced like
giggle) hertz.

I have heard more than a few pronounce it "gigawiggles per second",
though.

I suspect that living in a southern US local that if we engineers
here started to use the "jiga" pronounciation with a regular basis, we
would end up being fired for using a racial slur. Kind of like
the D.C. mayor's aid that got fired for making the mistake of using
the word "niggardly" amoung the ignorant masses.

-Chuck

Watson A.Name - 'Watt Sun' wrote:
In article ,
mentioned...

"Costas Vlachos" wrote in message
...

Do people use the "jig-a" way? Never heard of it.

No? Jigawatts? ;-)


Jigahurts was the only way I heard Gigahertz pronounced back in the
'60s when I woekrd for a radio eng'g lab. That's not long after the
time when the prefizxes were adopted. Before that, it used to be
micromicrofarads instead of picofarads.

Somehow betwen then and now it got perverted to today's pronunciation.


Tim


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