Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 November 20

= November 20 =

ARC
I took this photo of these (presumably German) glasses to illustrate a use of the centiliter subunit. Two questions: Is use of this non-SI unit customary in Germany (and where else)? And for what does "ARC" stand? Doug butler (talk) 11:13, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Centiliter is indeed the commonly used unit for these types of glasses. ARC is the maker of the glass, I think, although the location of the name on the glass seems a bit odd. --Wrongfilter (talk) 11:48, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Also in Scandinavia, centiliter is commonly used when measuring alcoholic beverages, especially spirit. Also wine bottles are often marked as 75 cL, as the Italian wine bottle with English language labels I have in front of me just now. Beer is usually marked in cL, but may also be marked in mL or L. In recipes it is usual to measure liquids (even alcoholic beverages) in dL, just to make the picture complete. --T*U (talk) 13:13, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I believe that millimetres were fixed as standard by countries converting to metric units to avoid confusion with inches, e.g. 20 cm could be confused with 20 inches, but 200 mm was less likely to be confused with 200 inches. In WWII, Allied countries used mm for weapon calibres but Germany used cm. Alansplodge (talk) 13:58, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I have been told that the preference for mm over cm was to avoid having to use decimals (or even worse:fractions) in technical drawings etc. I guess both explanations may have some logical merit. --T*U (talk) 15:23, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
 * In the UK, centilitres (often abbreviated cl, but also printed as cL) are the usual measurement for prepacked drinks, especially wine and spirits. Canned or bottled beer seems to vary, being in millilitres or centilitres. (Draught beer is still in imperial pints.) The non-standard part of "centilitre" is "litre", not "centi", which is an SI prefix. I have very seldom seen decilitres (dl) used here. There are suggestions in [Google] when this question has been asked before that ARC may be the glass manufacturer; see the related . Bazza (talk) 14:18, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
 * However, notwithstanding the SI, the 12th CGPM, held in 1964, declared in Resolution 6 that the word "litre" may be used as a special name for the cubic decimetre; and the 16th CGPM, in 1979, decided in Resolution 6 (also) to adopt the two symbols l and L as symbols to be used for the unit litre – the latter reportedly to avoid confusion with the digit 1 in some fonts. This exception was reaffirmed by the CIPM in 1990. --Lambiam 16:09, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
 * *And just to make the point explicit, this means that the cL is not a "non-SI unit". --184.144.99.241 (talk) 05:11, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what that means. The litre is not an SI unit. It is, however, commonly listed as one of the "Non-SI units that are accepted for use with the SI". However, NIST considers "centiliter" a "deprecated term" not recommended for continued use, and – for reasons unknown to me – the ATF did not accept the use of "centiliter" on wine bottles, requiring "milliliter" instead. I'm not sure, though, whether this curious ruling is still in effect. --Lambiam 12:41, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Right. I withdraw the point. --184.144.99.241 (talk) 13:56, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks Bazza for that link. So Arc International stamps "ARC" on the 4cl mark to certify its accuracy. And not a German abbreviation as I had suspected. Thanks all. Doug butler (talk) 20:21, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Words beginning with C in German are quite rare, to begin with. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:46, 21 November 2021 (UTC)


 * That's why the German word for "centiliter" is "Zentiliter". J I P  &#124; Talk 18:39, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
 * ...but still properly abbreviated to "cl" (or "cL"); c.f. chilometro and "km". Bazza (talk) 15:12, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
 * cf. abbreviates one word, Latin confer, not two. —Tamfang (talk) 02:35, 25 November 2021 (UTC)