Re: local units

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

mi'e .djan. .i la xorxes. cusku di'e

> > Countries that are fully SI-ified in daily life still
> > talk of 90 degree angles, not $\pi / 2$ radian angles.
>
> And so do countries that have used the metric system from their birth, and
> thus never had to be SI-ified :)

Picky, picky, picky.  Anyway, I think there are no such countries (or at
least no such {natmi}, even if there are {gugde}): the metric system is less
than 7 gigaseconds old, and as far as I know no new nations have been
founded in that time.

> > Alternatively, degrees need a really compelling lujvo.
>
> {jgarau} is perfect. No one will mistake it for {radno}, even if it could
> include it.

But its place structure is all wrong.  The measurement gismu have the
place structure "x1 is measured as x2 units (default 1)", so a {grake} is
not a gram, but something which masses 1g.  The relevant gismu place
structures are:

        jganu: x1 is an angle with vertex x2 and lateral x3
        gradu: x1 is a unit of scale x2 measuring property x3

None of these six places are relevant to the measurement-gismu pattern.
The nearest analog to this pattern is "klani", with place structure

        x1 is measured/counted by quantifier x2 on scale x3

(Note that this is a very recent change from the old structure, which
had x1 and x2 reversed.)  I suppose that "jgalai" is acceptable for "degree"
with place structure k1 k2, with k3 replaced by some sort of deep magic
that eats up all the places of "jganu".

> It may be interesting to actually use these units. How does {megsnidu} sound
> for "fortnight"?

Quite a bit too short, that's how it sounds.  Here are the exact conversions,
just for hack value:

        1 kilosecond = 16 minutes 40 seconds
        1 megasecond = 11 days 13 hours 46 minutes 40 seconds
        1 gigasecond = 31 years 251 days 13 hours 34 minutes 51.52 seconds

(assuming all years are 365.2422 days long exactly).  These time units were
used extensively in Joan Vinge's sf novel >The Outcasts of Heaven Belt<,
set in a stellar system with inhabited asteroids but no habitable planets.

--
John Cowan              sharing account <lojbab@access.digex.net> for now
                e'osai ko sarji la lojban.