Spelling "Misteaks" 10

[KenAlmon]

Oftentimes I am confronted with words that just don't look right. References to various dictionaries often don't help. Just wondering whether there is a consensus for:

1. plural of bus - busses or buses (I tend to use busbars!)
2. time current curves that don't work resulting in "maloperations" or is it "misoperations"
3. Amps - I was once told by a teacher long ago that anyone who has a unit of measurement named after them, should have the honour of the name being both Capitalized and NOT shortened. Thus the proper terms: Watt-second vs watt-second, Ampere vs Amp or amp, Hertz vs hertz (Hz OK).

If you have any others, I'd like to hear about them. Also, as geography/culture oftentimes bears some role in our spelling, please provide your "connection". I, by the way, am from Canada.

 

[jghrist]

1. I prefer buses, although my dictionary says buses or busses. Maybe someone knows what the IEEE Standard Dictionary of Electrical and Electronics Terms says.
2. Misoperations. IMHO anyone using maloperations is guilty of malpractice.
3. It may not be honorable, but the standard for metric units is to always begin them with a lower-case letter, except for Celsius. I don't know why Anders Celsius rates more honor than Andre Marie Ampere. The symbols of metric units begin with a small letter except where the symbol is derived from the name of a person, e.g. ampere or A and meter or m. Amp is not a standard abbreviation.

 

[IRstuff]

NIST used to allow you to see their style guide, but it's now locked up for some reason.

Their page on SI units shows that the written unit is lower case not matter where it comes from. The capitalization occurs only in the symbol itself, hence ampere becomes A and kelvin becomes K, while meters and other units are lower case symbols.

http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/units.html

TTFN

 

[IRstuff]

Forgot to mention that the same page goes into some detail as to special notation for "degree Celcius" as the unit name and the symbol being the degree symbol followed by a capital C. Therefore, it is indeed the only unit where a capitalized name is used in the naming of the unit.
TTFN

 

[khodges]

It's refreshing to see an interest in maintaining standards in the most basic form of engineering … namely the notation of units. You were correctly informed with regard to the units when named for the individual influential in their development ... although the official convention is for the unit abbreviation (ie; Hz, W, F, etc) to be capitalised, yet the complete word, to avoid confusion with a persons surname, is not capitalised.

Check the website

http://info.ex.ac.uk/cimt/dictunit/dictunit.htm,

which has a detailed history of units, and is an excellent reference site for measurement.

On your specific numbered questions, I have used 'buses', but it's not generally used in the plural form, to be grammatically correct, it would actually be 'many bus', but then English is a flexible language and has developed to suit. With regard to 'mal-' or 'mis-operations', I've used 'mal-operations', yet haven't considered the grammatical correctness of the term. It is common here in New Zealand, which is largely based on British systems.

Internationally the use of non-standard terms has become commonplace, and the case you've quoted, with 'Amps' is one of the most prolific. The singular AND plural form is ampere, or A, being 1 ampere (1 amp!) or 300 ampere, as 300 amps translates to 300 amperes, which is meaningless, as the unit has no different plural form.

This compares with examples like 'celsius', whereby it is commonly understood that 273oC is not 273 degree celsius's, but 'degrees celsius'. The use of a surname in units excludes the use of it in a plural form, which makes sense.

This has some logic when writing for example Ampere's ampere, it is clear what is being communicated, whereas if the unit were capitalised, and a plural form permitted, it becomes Ampere's Ampere's, which defies grammatical sense.

I hope this helps and contributes to the correct use of technical English.

Kevin

 

[SidiropoulosM]

- both are correct but I prefer "busses"...it looks better.
- definitely "misoperations"
- "amperes" is the proper term, but "amps" is also correct as it has been established through common usage. Michael Sidiropoulos
Transmission Planning Engineer

 

[KenAlmon]

Michael Sidiropoulos:

Where are you from please?

Thanks,
Ken

 

[spryduck]

The dictionary says busses and buses are both appropriate. Just remember that buss is another word for kiss. So, busses also means kisses.

I prefer buses, misoperations, and amps.

I am just a heathen American and would not know proper English if it slapped me upside the head. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When life gives you grenades, well....

 

[Bung]

khodges, the apostrophe police will get you for your "Ampere's Ampere's"! Perhaps you meant "Ampere's Amperes"?

Bung
Life is non-linear...

 

[SidiropoulosM]

KenAlmon:
Originally from Greece, currently in Portland, Oregon.
Michael Sidiropoulos
Transmission Planning Engineer

 

[quark]

It is usual practice (thank God, somehow I resisted writing practise-check similar thread731-40551) to write those units derived (I mean literally not technically) from a person's name with capital letter in the beginning. Only exception is the unit 'Litre' or 'Liter' which starts with a capital letter. (or I was told so and if you insist to use small letter...go ahead)But I never heard anything against shortcuts.

I personally feel there is no precedence to language in technology. (Dumb Charades? strictly no)

 

[IRstuff]

And those are the correct writtten usages according to the National Institute of Standards and Testing. "A" is the symbol for the unit and ampere is the name of the unit.

TTFN TTFN

 

[jbartos]

Suggestion: Reference:
1. ANSI/IEEE Std 945-1984 IEEE Recommended Practice for Preferred Metric Units for Use in Electrical and Electronics Science and Technology.
(Apparently, Science is to be interpreted Applied Science=Engineering to have some meaning of this standard in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Design, Construction, etc.)
SI Unit System shows:
W-Watt
V-Volt
A-Ampere
VA-voltampere
T-Tesla
C-Celsius
K-Kelvin
H-Henry
Hz-Hertz
S-Siemens
N-Newton
Pa-Pascal
Wb-Weber
J-joule
etc.
m-meter
L-liter
g-gram
s-second
etc.
k=kilo, K=Kelvin, not to be mixed
m=mili, M=Mega, not to be mixed
===============================
buses is American English
busses is British English
maloperation, malfunction, maltreatment, etc.
misoperation?, misconduct, misinterpretation, misapplication, etc.
mis-bad, amiss, badly, wrongly, unfavorably, etc.
mal-bad, ill, evil, wrong; defective, imperfect; signifying simple negation, and forming words directly from Latin and mediately through French
Maloperation is in the dictionary, misoperation is not in the dictionary (at least not in a small one)

 

[IRstuff]

I don't have a copy of IEEE-945... could you verify the temperature unit? NIST Special Publication 330, 2001 ed., "The International System of Units (SI)" on page 7, paragraph 2.1.1.5 Unit of thermodynamic temperature (kelvin) defines the kelvin as the fundamental unit of temperature:

"The kelvin, unit of thermodynamic temperature, is the fraction 1/273.16 of the thermodynamic temperature of the triple point of water....

The unit of Celcius temperature is the degree Celcius,°C, which is by definition equal in magnitude to the kelvin."

Since both ANSI and IEEE are supposed to adhere to SI definitions generated by CIPM, I find it odd that an ANSI/IEEE document would define a lone C as the SI unit, particularly when other ANSI and IEEE documents use the correct °C symbol.
TTFN

 

[don01]

hi all
mis operation & mal operation. noweyesjuzthinkin, Its strange that I really don't ever recall hearing or seeing those words in a work place we allways seem to say some thing along the lines of incorrect operation or malfunction

Given that English is not latin but a dynamic "living" language the use of phrases such as amps is not correct but will be one day.

Yeh kelvin is the base scale but C is the normal engineering unit even in those countries where a cold day is given as 65
It is a 60 amp load gets you out of trouble with the s

PS its colour not bloody well color
PPS another common phrase for mal operation is F**** upped but that may take a while to get into the dictionaries though

All the best
Don

 

[don01]

oops sorry
im from Australia and we are proud to mangle any ones language
Sohavagooddaymatewhatchyarekon
Don

 

[IRstuff]

Not to get completely quagmired in nitnoids, but the official SI unit for Celsius temperature is °C, not just C

TTFN

 

[don01]

HI all
IRstuff your right, it is little o &C but until I figure out how to get it to appear on this dang thing with out shutting down the application or some other horrid disaster I'm going to cheat and say I really meant centigrade (does that still exist?)

An interesting observation today, We are finnishing our annual shut down and most of the crew wound up in the main incoming switch room looking at the state of our bus bars. (they are just fine a little bit dusty though)

I asked each team member in turn "what do you call those things" 100% (found that key) said "busbars". When I asked them what about busses they said that's the thing going down the road. Now thats not meant to be definitive just an interesting observation.

What about some of the other members are there other local phrases.

Regards to all
Don

ps I put a star onya IRstuff cause ya gotme fair & square

 

[IRstuff]

Thanks, the keycode for °C is to hold the <ALT> key down and type 0176 on the keypad. Many of the other similar formatted characters can be found the Character Map application in Windoze. The Character Map shows you the hexcode, which you have to convert to decimal and prepend with a 0. It's a GOOD thing...



TTFN

 

[Lewish]

don01, if you want colour and not color, then I expect better grammar from you. It is supposed to be you're not your in your reply addressing IRstuff.

Cheers.