Talk:Mile

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The article claims (unsourced): "The mile was usually abbreviated m. in the past but is now sometimes written as mi to avoid confusion with the metre". When I went to school (in England, in the 1960s mostly), we had to do things like "Divide 2 miles 4 furlongs and 1 chain by 7". In writing the answer, 'mile' was always abbreviated "ml." (and probably "mls." in the plural); the first time I ever saw the "mi" abbreviation was a road sign to Travers City, in the Michigan lower peninsula. But I have been unable to find any clear sources showing this, and actually I did find a book printed in Britain in the 19th century which used "mi." So I was wrong in assuming this was a total American invention. But I do not think the abbreviation "m." was ever used, except perhaps in cases of extreme space constrictions. Old-fashioned road signs in the UK (and I suppose current ones, but I haven't been there for a while) only ever showed miles as bare numbers. The "m" then appeared from the time of the first motorways, about 5 years before the beginning of the switch to the metric system (1965-1975, remember?). So I do not think the article is accurate, but I am not sure how to reword it. Imaginatorium (talk) 09:50, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Supply with electricity, gas, telecom, web, postal service to a single house or flat or address. --Helium4 (talk) 20:26, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect 63360. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 January 19#63360 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. YorkshireLad  ✿  ^(talk) 23:06, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@LlywelynII: A long time ago (12 April 2015) you appear to have been the first to add 'The origins of English units are "extremely vague and uncertain",{{sfnp|Chisholm|1864|p=8}}' although that might have come from elsewhere? At any rate, this edit by Tangerine Grits points out that the Chisholm reference is not working because it goes nowhere when clicking on it. I'm hoping you can fix it. Johnuniq (talk) 23:59, 10 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnuniq: Good point. It seems at the time I had a copy of Chisholm's letter/report but for the life of me (a) I can't find a copy easily available on Google now. It moronically has a copy listed but inaccessible because some twit is blocking accessibility to British gov't papers from 1864 under a species of copyright claim. There should be some copy buried in a Hansard or Parliamentary record either digitized or scanned but at the moment I can't find anything except the record of it. (b) My first thought was that some intervening edit had removed the cite by accident but, no, I had never added it apparently. It must've been that I couldn't figure out the official title since I had the letter/report but not the full volume and formatting old British parliamentary reports is a pain. This is the closest I can manage with the records that are accessible to me (but not the actual volume itself):

• Chisholm, Henry Williams (11 March 1864), "No. 115: Letter from the Comptroller General of the Exchequer to the Treasury, Dated 3d June 1863, Transmitting a Report on the Exchequer Standards of Weight and Measure, Dated 27th April 1863", Accounts and Papers: Session 4 February — 29 July 1864, vol. LVIII, London: Milner Gibson, p. 621.

That probably needs cleaning up before it's introduced into the article, though. First, it's obviously much longer than one page. Should be 51 or so. 2nd, I'm not sure exactly what Milner Gibson's role is. The record makes it look like he was the publisher but it seems more likely he was the MP who presented the letter or ordered it published. Similarly, 3rd, the record lists the report title this way but it may be somewhat different in the published volume, since I can't check. Similarly, 4th, there may be a different name for the volume as published or conventionally. The whole muddle of British officialdom during this period is still beyond my ken. Finally, 5th, the version I had at the time obviously started from page 1 and counted up from there. That may be how it was formatted but this record makes it look like I may have had an excerpt or separate printing and the original published version counted up from p. 621.

Alternatively, if it's too hard to track that down any more, (c) it seems most of the same content was included in Chisholm's later 7th report and its appendices and those could be used as an alternative and more accessible source if they cover all the relevant territory and quotes. — LlywelynII 14:18, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not mentioned in this article is that the word mile derives from mille passum which was latin for thousand paces, it was not defined any other way resulting in mile units all over Europe of varying lengths until the metric system was adopted. I think this information need to be included. Avi8tor (talk) 12:46, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The following:

"In Norway and Sweden, a mil is a unit of length equal to 10 kilometres and commonly used in everyday language. However in more formal situations, such as on road signs and when there is risk of confusion with English miles, kilometres are used instead."

should be replaced by this:

"In Norway and Sweden, a mil is a unit of length equal to 10 kilometres and commonly used in everyday language. However in all formal situations, such as on road signs and law, kilometres are used. For instance road signs are read in km (like 348 km) and the last digit rounded up and always expressed in common talk always in miles (like 35 miles!)." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.129.184.177 (talk) 06:35, 24 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

When you wrote always expressed in common talk always in miles (like 35 miles!)., did you intend to write "mils"? (no ⟨e⟩)? Meanwhile I will remove the silly "risk of confusion with English miles" since the risk must be nearly zero. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:09, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]