送交者: slashdot 于 2005-12-27, 00:37:42:
Wang spent much of his rebuttal to argue kilo means kilogram. He started with "kilos 在这里究竟是 kilograms 还是 kilometers, 是要根据上下文
决定". Acutally, at least in everyday life, I remembered kilo ALWAYS means kilogram. So there should be no ambiguity here. All my sympathy goes to Professor Zhu - I don't whether you're titled linguist or not - you just cannot comprehend the subtleties of a language, no matter how trivial they are, without living through it. I'm sure Zhu read a lot more English classics than I ever did, but sorry Shakespear can't help him here.
Just out of curiosity I decided to seek confirmation from authoritive sources:
1. Merriam Webster (American English)
Very straight forward (it's rare for MW believe me): "kilo: KILOGRAM"
http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary/kilo
2. English Dictionary for Advanced Learner By Collins (U.K. English)
Also very straight forward: "A kilo is the same as a kilogram. Examples: He'd lost ten kilos in weight. ... a kilo of rice."
So not only it has one meaning and one meaning only, it's also ubiquitously used on both sides of Atlantic Ocean.
Now it's official. Move on folks.