Anyone know what mains gas costs per cubic metre ?

[milanbenes]

less of it


Milan.

[BrowneIssue]

So please explain how we commonly say...

50 metres square for a floor area

then why not 3 metres cubed for a measurement of gas ?

This is going to get very tedious very quickly.

"50 metres square for a floor area" - 'we' don't say that. One says "50 square metres".

Equally "3 cubic metres".

This is different from "50 metres squared" which - in English semantics, as opposed to that of only a selection of programming languages - is equal to 2,500 square metres.

"3 metres cubed" is - in English - "27 cubic metres".

"50 metres square" might, at a push, mean an area of 50 square metres that just happens to also be square in shape, i.e about 7.071 metres along each side.

"square" and "cubic" are adjectives. "Squared and "cubed" are past tense verbs. They have different meanings.


I don't suppose that helps at all, does it?

[milanbenes]

I guess i've lived with all these europeans too long and construct my sentences like them

Milan.

[sasguru]

give it up milan.

[TimberWolf]

This is different from "50 metres squared" which - in English semantics, as opposed to that of only a selection of programming languages - is equal to 2,500 square metres.

Mathematics too. I don’t know of any languages other than natural ones (e.g. English) where operator precedence is multiplication followed by exponentiation i.e. "3 meters squared" means (3 * 1 metre)^2 rather than 3 * (1 metre ^2).

To avoid ambiguity when not using standard units it may be better to say a square 3m wide.

[sillysauce]

ummm...

dear Milan, i feel that you're being unfairly persecuted here...BrowneIssue is being unreasonably pedantic. there is ofcourse a legitimate difference between square metres and metres squared, elegantly explained here:
http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/58423.html
however, type "3 metres cubed" into Google and its automatic calculator function will give you 3 (metres cubed) = 3 m3. so the assumption is that the English expression "3 metres cubed" is shorthand for 3 m3, not 27 m3.
if you don't believe that Google is the foremost authority on all things, then refer to WolframAlpha, the mathematical search engine par excellence:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3+metres+cubed
WolframAlpha also interprets "3 metres cubed" as 3 m3.
try the same with "3 metres square"
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3+metres+square
and it yields "3 x meter2" not 9 m2.

moreover, as Milan points out, European languages often work that way as well. i can't speak for Czech, but in French for instance, you would say "3 mètres carres" and "3 mètres cube"; you would never say "3 carres metres", grammatically that just doesn't make any sense.
hence, a Francophone would probably tend to say "3 metres cubed" and "3 metres square" in English.
so give the man a break!

This is going to get very tedious very quickly.

"50 metres square for a floor area" - 'we' don't say that. One says "50 square metres".

Equally "3 cubic metres".

This is different from "50 metres squared" which - in English semantics, as opposed to that of only a selection of programming languages - is equal to 2,500 square metres.

"3 metres cubed" is - in English - "27 cubic metres".

"50 metres square" might, at a push, mean an area of 50 square metres that just happens to also be square in shape, i.e about 7.071 metres along each side.

"square" and "cubic" are adjectives. "Squared and "cubed" are past tense verbs. They have different meanings.


I don't suppose that helps at all, does it?

[NickFitz]

This is going to get very tedious very quickly.

Wrong - it took over 23 months:

bunch of stuff...