How do you pronounce kilometer?

[puppygod]

@blondebear

Klick?

Sorry for hijacking, but it’s not big enough matter to start new thread:

I always though that military “click” is 100 yard long, but checked this wiki article and it claims it’s kilometer - just like you said blondebear. But in the same article there is quote on the origin of click, where it claims that after all it is 100 yards. Now I’m confused. Which one it is, 100 yards or 1000 meters? What’s straight dope on that?

[Staggerlee]

@Raguleader

As we jokingly say in our Chinese class: 都可以

You owe me a new monitor! Oh, no, actually it’s fine…

[Martini_Enfield]

@furryman

For years in my mind I’ve pronounced it kill-o-meter, but I heard that the proper pronounciation was kil-om-eter. Recently though I’ve seen two different programs were they pronounced it kill-o-meter. What’s the correct way to pronounce it?

Both ways of pronounciation are correct. However, the word is generally spelt “Kilometre”, at least by everyone outside the US. Still, we’ll let that pass since it’s good you’re getting with the whole Metric thing, which is great (I still cannot get my head about the whole Fahrenheit scale or, more importantly, why people in the US still insist on using it when the Centigrade scale is clearly more logical, sensible, and therefore superior, IMHO).

[LSLGuy]

@puppygod

Sorry for hijacking, but it’s not big enough matter to start new thread:

I always though that military “click” is 100 yard long, but checked this wiki article and it claims it’s kilometer - just like you said blondebear. But in the same article there is quote on the origin of click, where it claims that after all it is 100 yards. Now I’m confused. Which one it is, 100 yards or 1000 meters? What’s straight dope on that?

Modern (last 20 years) US Military “click” = 1 kilometer.

Back in WWII? Who knows?

[glee]

@Martini Enfield

Both ways of pronounciation are correct. However, the word is generally spelt “Kilometre”, at least by everyone outside the US.

A kilometre is a thousand metres.

A kilometer would measure kilos (like a gas meter).

[Jamaika_a_jamaikaiake]

@RickJay

I also keep pronouncing “during” as if it starts with a J, another nasty Canadian habit.

2 stories on this:

My first year in grad school, a bunch of us were driving around looking to do some grocery shopping. See, not all of us had cars, so one would drive the whole group to a store. Anyway, we were discussing the choice of store, Sam’s Club was mentioned, and the New Zealander in the car said, “but if we go to Sam’s Club, we have to pay JEWS” :eek:

We finally sorted out that he has ‘Jews’ and ‘dues’ as homophones.

When learning Hungarian for the first time:

The language book gives English examples for pronunciation of various letters

For example:
t - top, Tom
ty - tube

We (Americans) couldn’t figure out why they had 2 letters (ty, gy, dz, dzs, sz, zs, cs, ly, ny are each considered one letter) for the same sound. It turns out the book was assuming the reader was British!

[Khadaji]

I pronounce it kill-OM-eter, but have heard it pronounced both ways.

[Raguleader]

@glee

A kilometre is a thousand metres.

A kilometer would measure kilos (like a gas meter).

OR it could be a thousand meters (that each measure something)

[The_Them]

k’LOmter. I offer nothing rational as to why.