Talk:Kilometres per hour

pagename

Should this page's name be changed to "Kilometres per hour"? Vancouverguy 22:45, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Yes it should, I'll change it now. WikiSlasher 03:57, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Why has someone changed the spelling from kilometre to kilometer. Kilometre with the "tre" is the standard worldwide spelling only Americans spell it that funny way G-Man 23:00, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

No, in german it is also spelled de:Kilometer. --Thomas

It's not just German and American English. You only have to hover of the language box on the left of the article to see that it's "meter" in many languages. --Multiplexor (talk) 17:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

kph

kph is a measurement of speed, not velocity

kph is a measurement of nothing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.65.140.55 (talk) 13:06, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

In the metric SI system:

• k is a prefix "kilo" and represents a multiplier of 1,000
• p is a prefix "pico" and represents a multiplier of 1/1,000,000,000,000
• h is an accepted abbreviation for hour

Ignoring for the moment that it is not accepted practice to combine prefixes, the presumed literal interpretation of kph is: (1 hour/1,000,000,000) OR 3.6 microseconds.

As is currently, this section reads as an attempt to legitimize a misuse of the SI system. While sometimes this is seen, this does not make it an acceptable representation of kilometres per hour.

I therefore propose that this be amended to acknowledge that while kph is sometimes mistaken as the abbreviation for km/h, that the correct usage is, in fact, km/h and NOT kph (or, for that matter, kmph).

Enquire (talk) 04:44, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

The use of "kph" has raised its head again. It shoudl not be mentioned in the lede unless its use is properly clarified - legally it may not be used within the EU for matters pertaining to the "Internal Market" (prior to 2010 it could not be used for economic, public administration, public health and public safety" purposes). Unless we can get this into the lede, it is best to remove all references to the use of kph from the lede. In Ireland, a knock-on of this might well be that a speeding ticket for travelling at "100 kph in a 60 kph zone" is invalid as it would fall foul of the EU directive. Martinvl (talk) 21:16, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I have removed references to the use of "kph" from the lede. We have no citations to show how much it is used, so tho state that it is "often" used is POV. If kph is going to be mentioned in the lede, then it must be properly qualified. There, either mention it with qualification or not at all. Martinvl (talk) 16:39, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Scalar versus vector

I was under the impression that vectors require a direction. If so km/h could not be a vector, it would need to be 'x km/h, north' or something like that. I made an edit on that basis but it was reverted. Can this be clarified? Bobblewik  (talk) 4 July 2005 17:44 (UTC)

As the article force tells us, "A force can be represented by a vector with two properties: magnitude and direction." That doesn't mean that it would be wrong for it to say, as it does, that the "SI unit used to measure force is the newton," does it? Nor for newton to say that it "is the SI unit of force"?

Why in the world would you think that velocity would be any different? As its own article says:

• "It is thus a vector quantity with dimension length/time. In SI units this is metre per second."

Gene Nygaard 4 July 2005 18:20 (UTC)

I don't know the answer. The following seemed plausible:

The Difference Between Speed & Velocity
A scalar quantity is one which can be fully described by its size. Length, mass, temperature, energy, speed and volume are all scalar quantities. For example 20kg fully describes the mass of an object.
A vector quantity is one where you must also mention its direction. Force, velocity, displacement and acceleration are all vector quantities. For example a force of 20N can only be fully described by quoting its direction. 20N upwards will be different than 20N to the left.

Direction may be implicit in many cases, but if that source is correct, a vector quantity without a direction is incomplete. Bobblewik  (talk) 4 July 2005 22:07 (UTC)

m/h

At Knot (speed) someone changed 'm/h' to 'metres per hour' because it looked too much like 'miles per hour'. That's fine with me, but I was wondering. Isn't that usually written as mph? Which would solve the ambiguity. And is 'm/h' an acceptable notation for 'metres per hour'? I suppose it is because in the metric system you can combine anything with anything. Although km/h and m/s are more common. DirkvdM 09:19, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

You are right. The unit 'metres per hour' is correctly written as 'm/h'. The SI website clearly lists the:

• official symbol for 'metre'

and the

• official symbol for 'hour'. Note that the SI unit of time is the second, not the hour. The hour just happens to be 'accepted for use' with SI units.

As you might expect, the Wikipedia articles Metre and Hour repeat the official symbol. So there is no reasonable ambiguity with 'm/h' and it is incorrect to claim that there is.

There are no internationally agreed symbols for 'miles per hour' so I cannot advise you on that. Note also that 'mph' is language dependent. One of the benefits of the metric system is that it does not depend on knowing the language, just as the international symbol for mercury is Hg. For example, 'miles per hour' and 'kilometres per hour' would be 'mao' and 'cao' in Italian.

However, Wikipedia articles appear to accept 'mi/h' and 'mph' as forms for miles per hour. I think I have also seen 'mi/h' on speedometers. Either of those abbreviations work for me. Bobblewik 16:03, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Just because the official symbol for meters is m, and the symbol for hours (at least when used with SI) is h, that would only show that m/h can mean meters per hour, not that it cannot mean miles per hour. Good grief, even among the SI and units acceptable for use with it, we have the symbol 'rad' which can stand for two different units, rad and rad. We also have "nm" used for nautical miles, as well as the SI unit of lenghth, nanometers.

For miles per hour, mi/h is better than mph, IMHO.

But you will almost never see m/h used for miles per hour in current usage, so there is no real ambiguity. For that matter, you are probably even less likely to run into meters per hour in actual usage. So enough of this tilting at windmills. Gene Nygaard 17:17, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

I suppose the '1852 metres per hour' in the article really should be changed to '1,852 km/h'. There is no need to use the uncommon 'metres per hour'. Also notice my use of a comma. I read in one thread that the SI rules say you can use either a comma or dot here (and the thousands-separator is a space). But don't worry, I'll use a dot :) .

As for something like km/h being the same in all languages. That is alas not entirely true. Prefixes like 'kilo' are. And afaIk the same goes for the 'm' in all western languages, because the equivalents of 'metre' all happen to start with an 'm' (which isn't a total coincidence of course). But the 'h' isn't universal. It works in Spanish (hora) and French (heure) and I imagine in all Latin languages. But not in Dutch, where the word for 'hour' is 'uur', so it's 'km/u'. which made me wonder about German, inwhich the word for 'hour' is 'Stunde'. Which rather inconveniently starts with an 'S' (capital, but still). So I looked up the German article on km/h and it turns out they write it with an 'h'. Well, they had little choice. But then I looked up the same article in Dutch and there it is also written as km/h. Which surprises me, because most people (though not all) use km/u, even including me, and I am a very strong supporter of standardisation. I'll amend my ways forthwith :) . This however seems to be the only problem with SI base units (in western languages and as far as I know). 'Gram' starts with a 'g' in all languages, as does does 'second' with an 's'. And the others (A, K, mol, cd) seem to be too recent to have different names in different languages.

I also Googled this. In Dutch pages km/u is just a little more common than km/h. I can't make a comparison for German because I wouldn't know what to test against, but km/h scores close to 2 million hits. So at least it's common. DirkvdM 07:26, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I am really supriced that the Dutch would have any ambiguity about this! The km/h is the international standard and the individual abrivitions don't come from the language of the particular country. F.ex. in Finland hour is "tunti", still kilometriä tunnissa is km/h as per SI (which itself stands for "Kansainvälinen yksikköjärjestelmä" in Finnish as in English although its a French acronym), day, "päivä" is d, year, "vuosi" is a and so forth, like in (scientific) English. And I assume the prefix "micro" is abrevieded with the Greek letter mu (μ) in Dutch too?82.181.150.151 21:42, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Residential Limit

I was under the impression that residential areas are usually 20 or 25 mph, or about 30 or 40 km/h. Are they actually 50 km/h in metric countries? 50 km/h (about 30 mph) is a bit fast for a neighbourhood... koolman2 08:34, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

In the UK residential limits are 30mph. In Australia residential limits are 50km/h (though 40km/h limits apply past schools during certain posted hours). YMMV! Graham 09:03, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Interesting! Thanks- koolman2 18:38, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Traffic accident research shows that the risk of death resulting from a pedestrian being hit by a vehicle rises dramatically (five times) when comparing an impact at 50 km/h (31.25 mph) to 30km/h (18.75 mph). In other words, the risk of death or major injury at 30 km/h (say, 20 mph) compared to 50 km/h (say, 30 mph) is 20% or one fifth). See, for example:

• Rosén, Erik; Sander, Ulrich. "Pedestrian fatality risk as a function of car impact speed" (PDF). Accident Analysis and Prevention. Autoliv Research, Wallentinsvägen 22, 447 83, Vårgårda, Sweden. pp. 536–542. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); External link in |work= (help); More than one of |work= and |journal= specified (help)

As a result, various municipalities around the world are experimenting with and/or implementing reduced speed limits for residential and./or school zones.

Enquire (talk) 20:40, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Germany (or at any rate Frankfurt) tends to use 50 km/h is normal urban areas, but 30 km/h is residential roads that are nor designed for through traffic. Martinvl (talk) 06:44, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Image

What the speed 50 km/h looks like on a normal bicycle

Does anyone else think that this is not really necessary. Firstly, what it looks like on the photo despends on the shutter speed of the camera. If the shutter speed is different, then the image would look very different too.

Also, does the image add any meaning to the article? Is it easier to picture what km/h means? Richard B 18:24, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree, the image is worthless. Removed as per WP:BB Graham 11:08, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

External links

The link that you currently have in your article points to a site that is an unauthorized copy of the other site. The original page of online speed conversion is http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/speed The site http://www.convert-me.com/ exists for years (you can check http://www.archive.org) and the illegal copy linked from this article was only placed recently. As the owner of the original www.convert-me.com project, I'll be happy to provide any additional information and proofs of authenticity. My name is Sergey Gershtein and my contact info can be found on http://sergey.gershtein.net/ I think I will go ahead and edit the page changing the link to make it point to the original site.

Also the other link is a broken one.

kph abbreviation

Is it really wrong? http://www.thefreedictionary.com/kph http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/kph http://webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=kph http://www.google.com/search?q=kph

All say kph is kilometers per hour.

No, it's not wrong. Following standard practice for abbreviations, kilometres per hour = kph; if the standard abbreviation, km, is instead used for kilometres, then kilometres per hour becomes kmph; these are perfectly valid abbreviations. Unfortunately, an editor has, at some point, labelled them as incorrect because they are not the accepted standard abbreviations used in scientific discourse. (Just to be clear, this is not an anti-science comment; I am a scientist who uses kmh^-1.) However, not being part of a standard does not make something incorrect—if it did we'd all be using metres per second anyway. ObfuscatePenguin 18:23, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

It depends exactly what your definition of "wrong" is; one can argue that no misspelling etc is "wrong", just "non-standard". However for practical purposes, "non-standard" equals "wrong". Certainly no high quality publication (ie not the Metro or other error-filled rags) would regard "kph" as acceptable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.240.52.217 (talk) 20:34, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I have never seen "kph" on a car's speedometer - as explained in the article, "kph" is specifically an English abbreviation, not an internationally accepted symbol whereas "km/h" is used internationally. Martinvl (talk) 06:53, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

RfC: Should titles of article on units of the form "X per Y" be singular or plural?

I've moved the discussion to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions#RfC: Should titles of article on units of the form "X per Y" be singular or plural?; the two of us (myself & User:Piercetheorganist) could have this discussion forever, and get nowhere fast. Hopefully, more people have that page on their watchlist, and will contribute. Oli Filth^(talk) 13:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Wiki converter

I would add an wiki online convertion page (to change from km/h to mph and viceversa).

Something similar to :

but applied to conversions :

<inputbox> type=? width=24 break=no buttonlabel=km/h to mph </inputbox>

conversion section

Is there a standard on Wikipedia for which side of the equation the page's subject should be on? The section here lists km/h on different sides for different lines, which is confusing. 205.167.180.131 (talk) 17:35, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Italics

The article states "the official recommendation from the BIPM is to use km/h" (km/h in italics). The use of italics here is unfortunate. The BIPM specifically states: "Unit symbols are printed in roman (upright) type regardless of the type used in the surrounding text" http://www.bipm.org/en/si/si_brochure/chapter5/5-1.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.142.49.137 (talk) 14:17, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

De-italicised "km/h" as per suggestion — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.13.17.54 (talk) 18:56, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Removal of translations

I think we should remove these. We already have interwiki links for many languages and having a translation for a dozen random ones doesn't add to the article. It is a weird criteria:

• The following are translations of the text "kilometres per hour" where either "km" or "h" do not appear in the text.

as well. - SimonLyall (talk) 19:43, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I added this section originally in response to the insistance of many parts of the British press to use "kph" rather than km/h for "kilometres per hour"; to show that this is incorrect and why it is incorrect. Simon, I notice that you have contriubuted a number of New Zealand related articles - I don't know how much time you have spent in the UK, but what I have written is aimed at UK and US readers rather than English-speakers who use the metric system in most aspects of life. Martinvl (talk) 20:35, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I still don't see the need for all the translations. The rest of the text says what the correct abbreviation(s) are and cite 3 official bodies. The translations do not add to this. BTW using kmph is not unknown in New Zealand although since people see the correct way written all the time it is much less common. - SimonLyall (talk) 22:11, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I disagree with your assertion that the translations do not add to the article, but I agree that 12 is probably too many. I suggest that we reduce the list to maybe three or four and have a note of explanation next to each. Typically, we could write:

• Dutch: kilometer per uur - The dutch word uur (hour) does not contain an "h".

I would choose German ("hour" = "stunde"), Portuguese ("kilometre" = "quillometreo") and Greek - non-latin script.

Martinvl (talk) 04:48, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm still confused as to what the translations are for. Are they "Look these languages spell it this way but still use km/h " or "Looks a some translations of km/h " or is it something else?. In both the cases I list I really don't see the point. Seriously who cares that germans write Kilometer pro Stunde but use km/h as an abbreviation? - SimonLyall (talk) 10:23, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The point is that the Germans write "km/h" even though the letter "h" does not appear in the German longhand. The British press continues with "KPH", even though it meets no standards. Moreover, if the Germans are prepared to use the interational standard even if does not map onto their language, then English speakers should also be willing to do so, especially as all the letters "k", "m" and "h" map onto the English longhand. Martinvl (talk) 12:31, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The section already has 3 standards bodies saying kmph is a bad think. Saying what non-english languages do is a weak argument to add to the others and makes the section twice as long as it needs to be. I think we can just remove it and it will make the section cleaner and get it's point across better. - SimonLyall (talk) 20:33, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I've chopped down the section so it now mentioned a couple of the translations in the text rather than a list - SimonLyall (talk) 19:42, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

EU directive

I gave removed the "citation flag" because it has certainly been published, albeit in a round about manner: If you look at the refernece given, you will see:

• ANNEX
  • Chapter I 1.1 - Catalogues the "metre" as a permissable unit with symbol "m"
  • Chapter I 1.3 - Catalogues the prefix "kilo" as a permissable perfix with symbol "k"
  • Chapter I 2 - Catalogues the "hour" as a permissable unit with symbol "h"
  • Chapter I 5 - permits the combination of units in catalogued in Chapter I.

Since the way in which units may be combined is not spelt out, one should look at the recital for guidance (which is why the recital is there). Here we see the paragraph "Whereas units of measurement are the subject of international resolutions adopted by the General Conference of Weights and Measures (CGPM) set up by the Metre Convention signed in Paris on 20 May 1875, to which all the Member States adhere; whereas the ‘International System of Units’(SI) was drawn up as a result of these resolutions;",one should look at the SI brouchure for guidance (Extract here).

Finally an example of what this means can be found this EU direcitve. Martinvl (talk) 23:14, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

As you say, in a very "round about manner"! There is though a difference between it being required that way and it actually being done that way. You don't need to look far, even on the Irish government's own website (and for sure on the UK's too) to see that. Ornaith (talk) 14:05, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

EU directive

The term "km/h" is a symbol, not an abbreviation. The text that was removed was crafted to avoid using either term. It was also crafted to emphasise "offical" documents. That is the reason why I reverted the changes. Martinvl (talk) 17:02, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I have a number of comments about Ornaith's changes:

• The EU directive uses the word "symbol" consistenly throughout the document, the phrase "as the abbreviation (or "symbol" as the SI define it)" is inaccurate. As explained in the article, there is a fundemental difference between a symbol and an abbreviation.
• When Ornaith rewrote the text, he added the phrase "...are frequently used by both the Irish and the British." Does he mean "official documents", "popular press" or "everyday language". Unless he adds a qualification (with citation), what was written is meaningless. Martinvl (talk) 23:28, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

EU Directive - 3 July 2012

I have reinstated the older version because:

• The word "Symbol" appears in the text of the English-language version of the relevant EU directive (directive 80/181/EEC) 36 times - the word "abbreviation" does not appear at all. Why was the word "abbreviation introduced into the text"?
• The text as I wrote it only mentions "official documents". This was removed. Why?
• The <<... "kph" and "k.p.h." are frequently used in both Ireland and Britain>> had no citation. I repeat my question from an earlier posting - was the editor refering to offical documentation or the popular press. He should note that the picture of the "50 km/h" used "km/h", not "kph".

Martinvl (talk) 08:20, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

By all means make corrections, but please don't keep reverting everthing I do. I re-inserted the "official documents", as you could have yourself, without the need to revert the image caption and other changes I made to improve and add depth to the content. That the EU choose to use the word "symbol" to describe for their favoured abbreviation of "kilometres per hour" does not mean that we have to. And it does not mean you need to revert all my other changes if you insist on denying the use of "abbreviation" as a valid description in English for the shortening or contraction of the phrase "kilometres per hour" to "km/h". As for the extent of use of "kph", how do you suggest we qualify it? A google count? Examples of a cross-section of government documents, press documents, websites, &co in which it appears? What should we do if we find its use is more frequent in all areas than "km/h"? Ornaith (talk) 09:14, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

There is a fundemental difference between "abbreviation" and "symbol". If you read the rest of the artcile, you would see that the symbol "km/h" is applicable to all languages (see also Metric system), whereas abbreviations are language specific. Do you honestly think that the EU would mandate the use of abbreviations where symbols are available? (To clarify things, VAT is an abbreviation, it is called TVA in France). The EU did not mandate the use of abbreviations, it mandated the use of symbols, so it is improper to write that the EU required the use of abbreviations.

I agree that clarifying the use of the abbreviation "kph" does pose problems - using a Google count is WP:OR, so is not an option. That is why I stopped short an only wrote about official publications. If you can find an authoritative reference that quantifies the use of kph, please do so, but don't do the analysis yourself.

Martinvl (talk) 13:48, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Can you answer the following please:

• Why did you revert my change to the picture caption?
• The symbol is used as an abbreviation (except where, probably more commonly, kph is used), so why not use the word? I'll not labour that point though.
• Do you disagree that kph is frequently used?
• Do you have evidence that km/h is used more often than kph in official documents?

Ornaith (talk) 14:43, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

• It was quicker than to pick and choose.
• The symbol is not, repeat not used as an abbreviation - the symbol is "km/h" and the abbreviation is "kph". Which part of that statement do you not understand?
• I can's speak for Ireland (I assume that you are Irish), but informal searches that I have done in Britain indicate that the "popular press" use "kph" (but usually mph) while official publications generally use "km/h". Both the UK and Ireland are subject to identical EU directives. BTW, if any of your friends are changed with doing "80 kph in a 50 kph zone", may I suggest that you advise them to see a lawyer who will probably get them off the charge on a technicality.

Martinvl (talk) 15:01, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

• "It was quicker than to pick and choose"? An unbelievable attitude in a collaborative enterprise!
• The "symbol", as you like to call it, is alpha-numeric text. It is a short-hand, or abbreviated way, of writing the phrase. It is an abbreviation. It might appear as not some of abstract graphical symbol to those who do not use the latin alphabet, but this is the English Wikipedia, and "km" is an abbreviation of kilometre and "h" is an abbreviation of hour.
• You seem to agree then that "kph" is frequently used. Why not include that statement then? Ornaith (talk) 06:34, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Ornaith (talk) 06:34, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Let me put it this way

• An abbreviation is a shorthand of the word made by removing certain letters - for example Value Added Tax.
• A symbol is a shorthand of the word which made be nade in any convenient manner - for example °C for "degrees Celsius" - the symbol "°" denoting "degrees", even though the word "degree" does not contain it.

I have reinstated the earlier version, but have improved the caption of the 50 km/h sign and also made the picture bigger so that it was not dominated by the caption. Martinvl (talk) 10:01, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

• That the abbreviation is also a symbol in other contexts does not stop it being an abbreviation.

I have reinstated the clearer version and the version without incorrect terminology in the image caption. Ornaith (talk) 14:09, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

The text used the word symbol, not abbreviation. Which part of that statement do you not understand? Please reinstate the version which uses that language. Martinvl (talk) 16:09, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

I understand the statement in its entirety. In the international context that the SI/BIPM deal in, it is convenient for them to describe what is clearly an abbreviation in one language (from the French originally?) as a symbol for those whose words do not match the letters. However, when its origin is clearly the abbreviation of the full phrase (or do you suppose that it is just a coincidence that the letters "k", "m" and "h" were chosen?), it is not incorrect to describe it as such. Also the clarification of the usage of the word "symbol" in my wording adds valuable information to the article. Why not offer an alternative which encompasses your and my expectations, and let's see if we can reach a compromise. Ornaith (talk) 16:34, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

What you are advocating is WP:OR - something which, if done intentionally, goes against one of the pillars of Wikipedia. For the unteenth time, please reinstate the original text. Martinvl (talk) 17:10, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

No, it's all factual, so I have restored it. If you disagree, please offer a reasoned explanation, referring to the appropriate policy clauses, for how each of the following phrases that you reverted could be considered to be "WP:OR":

• "Irish speed limit signs clarify the speed unit to avoid confusion with non-united miles-per-hour signs that were used until 2005"
• "Although a European Union directive requires the use of "km/h" as the abbreviation (or "symbol" as the SI define it) for kilometres per hour in official documents in all its member states"
• ""kph" and "k.p.h." are frequently used in both Ireland and Britain."

Ornaith (talk) 12:09, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I have partially reverted. My responses:

• I am not going to get too streesed about your caption for the road sign, but I would prefer not to use the word "ununited" - it looks untidy. I will however not poress that point.
• Please look at the EU directive and count the instances of teh word "symbol" and count the instanes of the word "abbreviation". Alternatively check what I wrote earlier - "symbol" - 35 occurences, "abbreviation" - 0 (and in case you done understand number, in text form - nil, zilch, zero, náid). Why then do you persisit in trying to introduce that word - it is a total misrepresentation of the EU document.
• I agree that that kph is use in many document in the UK, mainly the tabloid press - governemnt documents tend to use "km/h", so unless we can quantify things, it is best to say nothing.

Please desist from stating that "Although a European Union directive requires the use of "km/h" as the abbreviation ..." becasue this has never been required. If you want to say something abotu the use of "kph" vis-a-vis "km/h", get an authoritative source to back up what you say. Martinvl (talk) 12:50, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

There was no need to revert at all. Here is why:

• If you can think of a better word, then replace it: but don't just revert the whole lot again. How about "non-united"?
• Why do you think that, in the summary to the contents of an English Wikipedia article, we should limit ourselves to the vocabulary available in an English translation of a French primary source document? The summary should be in our own words, and not necessarily in theirs. I attempted to make it clear that they call that abbreviation a "symbol", so what is the big deal?
• Why the preocupation with "official" documents? If "kph" is widely used, and we all know that it is, we should say it, not hide it. Why not?

Have you now abandoned your original excuse for reverting, that it was WP:OR? Ornaith (talk) 13:19, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I just had to revert another unreasoned change. Ornaith (talk) 15:16, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

It appears that Ornaith does not understand the meaning of WP:OR. It means "No Original research". The text which describes the restriction says "The term 'original research' (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist". There are a whole host of references that discuss the difference between symbols and avbbreviations - Ornaith seems to have realised that SI uses symnbols, not abbreviations. The EU directive used the word "symbol" exclusively and if one trawls through the various languages in which the directive was printed one sees the same symbols repeated time and time again. If Ornaith compares this version of the directive with this version of the directive he might see what the EU were getting at and why they specified the use of symbols rather than abbreviations. He might also realise that the sentence "Although a European Union directive requires the use of "km/h" as the abbreviation" which he insists on placing in the article is utter bullshit - "km/h" cannot ever be an abbreviation in in Greek, but it can and certainly is a symbol in Greek.

In order to remove this bullshit, I have reverted. Martinvl (talk) 20:29, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I am well aware of the difference between a "symbol" and an "abbreviation", and I can clearly see that an abbreviation could, for the sake of convenience and consistency, be called a "symbol", particularly when it is also used in the same form and with the same meaning in a language in which it is clearly not an abbreviation of the word or phrase used in that language. None of that though stops an abbreviation being an abbreviation.

What we need to remember here is that this is the "English" Wikipedia (not the "Greek" or the "European") and the article is about "kilometres per hour", not the language used by the EU in their directives. And in the English language "km/h" is clearly an abbreviation for "kilometres per hour". As there is no original research involved in that fundamental example of English usage I do not believe that a source is required. If you would like some sources though for your own benefit, here are some to browse through:

• [1]: Irish Department of Transport: Traffic Signs Manual Chapter 8: Abbreviations on page 8: "km/h - Kilometres per hour"
• [2]: Dictionary.com: "km/h - abbreviation for kilometres per hour"
• [3]: Scramble: General Abbreviations: "km/h kilometres per hour"
• [4]: Collins English Dictionary: "km/h abbreviation for kilometres per hour"
• [5]: Wiktionary: "Abbreviation km/h 1.kilometres per hour"
• [6]: MathsIsFun: "km/h An abbreviation of "kilometers per hour". A metric measure of speed."
• [7]: IEEE : "Unit or term": "kilometers per hour": "Abbrviation": "km/h"

I hope that helps you to realise your mistake. Ornaith (talk) 21:58, 5 July 2012 (UTC)