What size are your typical allotment in Britian?

[ina]

Mandy, give them some time. The British have only been metric for - what, 40 years now? - it takes time to get used to it...

[Muddypause]

Ah! Hmm. Yes. And no.

The unit of area is a 'square metre'. This can legitimately be written as m²; it is the unit that is being squared, not the number that preceeds it, so it does literally describe a 'square metre'. It is still spoken as "square metre".

25 sq m, or 25 m² are both OK.

However, 25 metres square implies a square that has sides 25m x 25m, (25² sq m). This is obviously much bigger, and it is not the generally accepted way of describing an area, since it can only be meaningfully applied to squares.

I'd like to thank you for this opportunity to show just what an anal retentive I am.

[ina]

I'd like to thank you for this opportunity to show just what an anal retentive I am.

Nae bother - our pleasure!

[Millymollymandy]

Now you are being confusing!! - 100m2 is when spoken, 'one hundred metres squared'. That to me (and all of France) means a room or garden or whatever that is X x Y (say 10m x 10m) = 100. 100m3 (one hundred metres cubed) is 10 x 10 x 10, say. All our measurements here are written as m2 or m3.

[Muddypause]

Now you are being confusing!! - 100m2 is when spoken, 'one hundred metres squared'.

No. "100 square metres". That is to say, 100 of the singular unit 'square metre'. "100 metres squared" implies (100 metres)². The thing is, you have to make it clear that it is the singular unit that is 'squared', not the amount.

That to me (and all of France) means a room or garden or whatever that is X x Y (say 10m x 10m) = 100.

You are right that 100m² ("100 square metres") would describe a room of 10m x 10m, but "100 metres squared" would be a room 100m x 100m.

100m3 (one hundred metres cubed) is 10 x 10 x 10, say. All our measurements here are written as m2 or m3.

The unit is often written as 'm²' which is the form specified by the SI system of international units - but you will also often see it as 'sq m' or something similar. It is a unit of a 'square metre', of which you have 100.

There may be a colloquial vernacular of 'metres squared', but it is not technically correct, and is specificaly excluded from the SI system.

Interestingly (wake up at the back!), this confusion never seemed to occur in imperial measure - I've never heard of anyone talk of '100 miles squared' or '100 inches squared', but only of 'square miles' etc.

[Millymollymandy]

It must be because I have become French then, because we say either in English '100 metres squared' or French '100 metres carre'. In that case the English here are correct (in the English way of looking at it) but haven't turned French yet, like me! And cubed in French is spoken '100 metres cube'.

Better start learning all the words of the Marseillaise.

[ina]

Better start learning all the words of the Marseillaise.

...and start liking goats cheese!

[Millymollymandy]

I used to, actually....... when I lived in England! My aversion to all things goaty is due to a cat having to go on a 6 week goat-only diet whilst we were living in the Netherlands.

[ina]

What strange kind of trouble did this poor cat suffer from?

[Millymollymandy]

It was a test to see whether he was allergic to anything in bought cat food. Apparently a lot of cat food, including the biccy types you can get from the vet, can cause allergies, and goat is the only meat never put into cat food, hence goat only to see if he was allergic to say, beef or chicken.

Turned out he wasn't allergic, it was a psychological thing apparently (licking his fur off and making sore bald patches ). But it was a stinky kitchen nightmare for us all, those 6 weeks, we tried grilled, boiled, roasted, eventually settling on microwaved as the least smelly option; poor cat didn't even like goat meat - and I had to go to the muslim area of Utrecht to even find it!

And I used to like curried goat west indian style which I've eaten at the Notting Hill carnival!

[ina]

Maybe it was the type of goatmeat you were able to buy there that was so awful. In France we sometimes had private buyers for quite young kids (the superflous males); they are supposed to be delicious.