Tuesday, July 22, 2008

quintal sighting: learning the metric system in St.Pierre

CBC Radio One's Weekend Arts Magazine host Angela Antle received this message after quintal was introduced as the Word of the Week:

Hi Angela,

When I was going to school in St Pierre quintal was taught to us along with the metric system, the symbol was q ; the plural in French is "quintaux";

quintal from Arabic quintar (quintar)
in the metric system = 100 kg
no longer used except in Latin America where it is used in the commerce of cotton

Bonne journée
Jacqueline Park

No comments: