<VV> Re: MILS, etc

[djtcz at comcast.net]

> 
> Yes, I was initially confused by this! In England, 'mil(s)' is a 
> commonly-used motor trade abbreviation for 'millimetres' (or sometimes 
> milliLitres), and 5-7 mm would be quite thick for a coat of paint... 
> 
> So, before I penned a sarcastic response to VV, I checked a web dictionary, 
> and I found that what y'all call 'mils' are what we here in England call 
> 'thou' (i.e. thousandths of an inch)! 
> 
> Now I understand, and it makes some sense! And 'thou' is a very common 
> measure here (e.g. when you are setting points or getting an engine 
> rebored!). It will be very useful information if I ever get any reboring 
> work done in the USA, and I can see that the mil/millimetre confusion could 
> have led to some rather disastrous misunderstandings if I had used the terms 
> wrongly in that kind of situation! 
> > 
Ever read in the papers that the 25 million dollars lottery prize is "25 M "or "25 Mil?"
If my wished for piston-to-cylinder wall diametral clearance is 0.0020 to 0.0030 inch, that's how I'd write it, using arabic numerals.  Words, as usual, rarely  cut it for either precision or accuracy.  Ask an Englishman and an American how many zeros in a billion.