Pronunciation of Decimal Units - How do you say these in English?

  • Thread starter LabManZulu - 2004
  • Start date

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#11
cncmarine said:
In the manfacturing world the average employee would understand the second quote. (.0005 = five tenths)Its not right but its true
My point was NOT whether the "average" employee would intuit what I meant.
  1. What if I spoke with a heavy foreign accent?
  2. What if the guy in the shop was a literal-minded person who spoke English (American English) as a second (or third) language? (I see lots of those every month.)
  3. What if I were just a "mush mouth?"
The point was (contrary to Poka Yoke, "mistake proofing," FMEA, etc.), I would have been introducing an unnecessary opportunity for error.

The original question referred to a person speaking English who had his previous experience in French. If we muck up the answer with all the sloppy usage and just plain wrong usage which abounds, we are contravening the concept of Quality. Odds are 50/50 the French speaker will not be working in inch-pound system, anyway. I'm not aware of anyone credible who would refer to 0.0001 meters as a "tenth!"
 
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apestate

Quite Involved in Discussions
#12
the reason I wrote what I wrote is because many before me had stated the proper terms for diminishing increments. I thought it noteworthy to explain the other way to communicate dimensions.

The confusion for me was great when I started. I rejected the jargon terms at first until I realized the historical terms reduced the measuring into two worlds--the world of the manufacturer and the world of the metrologist. facilitates thinking, estimation, work.

I agree that it's certainly more difficult to communicate clearly when using jargon. that's why I told the man about the jargon, so he would understand what people around him are saying.

After all, it is simply just another way to say the same thing. Whether it's temperature, weight, time, angle, or distance.
 

apestate

Quite Involved in Discussions
#13
Wes:

I just want to say that I have great respect for your professionalism and wisdom in management. I am always impressed with your knowledge, and I take your suggestions very seriously.

However wrong and unnecessarily tricky it may be, I still prefer the use of tenths. When speaking of millimeters or to managers I express dimensions in the proper terminology, of course, but when it comes to inches and parts I must defer to my fathers.
 
L

LabManZulu - 2004

#14
:lol: Didn't think my little question was going to bring up this big debate...

...Thanx for the welcome raffy & Wes... :bigwave:


Now do you understand my confusion? :bonk: ... I'm use to work with nano & pico....and now i see that there's a lingo for the "shop" and the "QM" dude! ;)


Ah...well, i'll read and learn from all of ya.... thanx for all your good input! :agree1:
 
C

CalGuy - 2004

#15
Well talking the decimal language can get confusing. I have always used this way.

0.1 = tenth on an inch
0.01= hundreth of an inch
0.001= thousandth of an inch
0.0001= one hundred microinches
0.00001= ten microinches
0.000001= one microinch
0.0000001= point one microinch

or

25.4mm = one inch
25.40mm = one inch
25.400mm = one inch :rolleyes:
 

Cari Spears

Super Moderator
Staff member
Super Moderator
#16
atetsade said:
...I will tell you how these inch increments are said in a shop.

.1 = one hundred thousandths
.01 = ten thousandths
.001 = one thousandth
.0001 = tenth

...however, it is much more common to speak of the increments using the two currencies of thousandth and millionth...
Yep, that's the common "shop talk" way. I've never worked in an environment where they say tenth for .1 or hundredth for .01. We talk in thousandths, so no one is ever confused when we say tenth meaning tenth of a thousandth (.0001) or half a thou (.0005)
 

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#17
Cari Spears said:
Yep, that's the common "shop talk" way. I've never worked in an environment where they say tenth for .1 or hundredth for .01. We talk in thousandths, so no one is ever confused when we say tenth meaning tenth of a thousandth (.0001) or half a thou (.0005)
I guess you've never been in a woodworking shop or a hot roll mill or a place that worked with metric dimensions.
 

Cari Spears

Super Moderator
Staff member
Super Moderator
#18
No, but I was a Carpenter in the Army for 6 years. Of course, when you're slappin' together guard towers and gates, there's no need to speak in anything but fractional inch.

I have not worked in a hot roll mill.

Yes, I've frequently worked with metric drawings. I've never seen anything more than two place decimals. Then we say :mg: "point oh two millimeters" or "three point four millimeters".
 
J

JerryStem

#19
Sometimes confusing

My company works with everyone from platers that do simple zinc barrel plating to people that deposit billionths of an inch of gold on space industry parts...

It gets confusing when some says they need calibration standards to measure "a tenth"... I mostly work in MicroInches (millionth), Mils (thousandth) and Microns (metric version of Millionth).

Jerry
:rolleyes:
 
C

cncmarine

#20
Yes it does get confusing. The best practice is to have your customers document what type of certification they want on a purchase order. (Or blueprint) That way no confusion can get in the way of getting the product done to specification.
 
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