Talk:Mile

Chronological order

At the moment the article presents facts about the history of the mile out of chronological order. The most glaring example is the placement of the paragraph on the Roman mile! I think it would be better if the historical facts about the land mile were in chronological order. Here is my suggestion:

Roman mile

Other miles

Historical miles in Britain and Ireland

Statute mile

Then follow it with

Nautical mile

Any comments? Michael Glass (talk) 09:04, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the Roman mile should be higher up in the article - how about merging it into the section on the origin of the mile.

I think that we should have a new section "The English-speaking world" which would start off with the historic miles in Britain and Ireland then lead into the statute mile as a sub-section. We must of course remember that a number of other articles link into the title "Statue mile".

The next section could be a discussion of other historic miles, followed by a section on the nautical mile.

Martinvl (talk) 10:09, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

The next section could be the nautical mile

I have now changed the text around as proposed, changing just one heading so that it fitted in the new position. Otherwise the text is almost unchanged (unless I made a slip in editing). Please check, as there are things that will have to be changed. Michael Glass (talk) 15:29, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. {{Visible anchor}} should take care of the external linking. But there’s another consideration—statute mile has a current as well as historical context. In the former, it distinguished the mile of 5280 feet from the Roman mile of 5000 feet (and perhaps a few others). Current usage is mainly to distinguish the “land mile” of 5280 feet (whatever type) from the nautical mile, and from the international mile for older US survey data. Perhaps the historical and current uses should be in different sections/subsections, preferably with distinct titles. JeffConrad (talk) 21:55, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. The term statute mile is a bit of a trap. In British usage it's just a fancy synonym for the mile but in American usage it becomes a bit ambiguous. Even though the official meaning is the US survey mile, more popular usage is not so precise. I think the terms international mile and US survey mile are more precise even though they are not as widely used as mile or statute mile. Michael Glass (talk) 08:07, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Does the US use the US Survey mile in common parlance?

Does the US use the US Survey mile in common parlance or when someone mentions a distance of miles are they referring to international miles? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.148.209.25 (talk) 05:10, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Origin of Mile, the Roman mile should be merged and Mile is not English, almost all countries had their mile, US is very slow and left behind

The beginning of this article is very confusing, and should be very strict abd clear.

Origin of Mile, the Roman mile

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The word mile originally derives from the Latin mille passuum (one thousand paces), one thausand (double)steps of a Roman soldier.

The Romans were first to use the unit of long distance mille passuum (literally "a thousand paces" in Latin, where each pace was two steps). It denoted a distance of 1,000 paces or 5,000 Roman feet, and is estimated to be about 1,479 metres (1,617 yards). This unit, now known as the Roman mile,[6] spread throughout the Roman Empire, often with modifications to fit local systems of measurements."

National miles

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Most countries had previous local miles and was used as a legal messure, for instance for coach fares and Mile stones were set up long the roads for the legally regulated coach payments (medeaval taxameters). Also certainly used for all other travellers too. The fares were regulated in different local legislation and so the miles were different.

Most countries decripated their use of miles when getting Metric, except the Scandinavian countries. Sweden, Norway and Finland that emended their old close to 10 km miles to excat 10 km. Great Britain was just late and is today metric except for road speed (mph) and bottlesizes (pints). The only English domination of the expression mile is that previously the British were (1980) and today US is late abandoning it. In US the metric system of km is refered to as military messures because they are standardised as NATO messures since the IIWW. Else the allied supply chain will be too heavy and expensive, and were a big problem during IIWW. In the US there is a long tradition of unwillingness to tell civilians what to do, so they go on with unstandardised messures to a huge cost. Most larger US manufacturers have already abaoned the nonstandard measures, like the car industry, and things like bolts and nuts. In the 70ies there were for instance identical Fords models manufactured in different countries with not a single part fitting inbetween, not even wiper blades. Quite an amsing experience for the owner getting spare parts.

Nautic Miles has nothing to do with Land Miles

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The nautical mile was originally defined as one minute of arc along a meridian of the Earth, and has nothing to do with the Roman mile but the name.

It is a simplier habbit of Swedish miles

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!)."

K is temperature and not distance

When Eurosport by Giro d'Itala says, "Oh they have 10K left" it is very very cold, and the bikes will crack and the bikers die, quick. It is really very bad language of an international Tv-channel and they should really take some internal talks about it.