English for Business Life Elementary

20.9 Measurem ents
When you describe measurements you say:
The pipe is five metres (5m) long,
or The pipe is five metres in length,
or It is a five-metre (5m) pipe.
You can say:
The cable is two hundred feet (200ft) long,
or It is a two-hundred-foot (200ft) cable.
The most common measurements are given in the
table below.
(In the UK both systems are used. Distances between towns
are given in miles. Lengths of wood are given in metres)
Metric
American
Length
1 millimetre = 0.039 inch
1centimetre
= 0.3937 inch
1 metre = 1.094 yards
1 kilometre = 0.6214 mile
Weight
100 grammes = 3.527 ounces
1 kilogramme = 2.205 pounds
1 tonne (1,000kg) = 0.984 ton
Capacity
1 decilitre = 0.176 pints
1litre
= 1.76 pints
1decalitre
= 2.20 gallons
Area
1 square centimetre = 0.155 sq. inch
1 square metre = 1.196 sq. yards
1 hectare = 2.471 acres
1 square kilometre = 0.386 sq. mile
Volume
1 cubic centimetre = 0.061 cu. inch
1 cubic metre = 1.308 cu. yards
Notes
1 metre, litre, etc. = meter, liter, etc. in American English.
2 informal: kilo (kilo gramme)
20.10 M oney
EU
You write: You say:
1 c one cent
25c twenty-five cents
€ 1 one euro
or a euro
€1.50 one euro fifty
or one euro and fifty cents
€3.75 three euros and seventy-five
three euros and seventy-five cents
€8m eight million euros
American
You write: You say:
lc or $0.01 one cent
56c fifty-six cents
$ 1 a dollar
or one dollar
$ 1.20 one dollar twenty
or one dollar and twenty cents
$3.75 three dollars seventy-five
or three dollars and seventy-five cents
$3bn three billion dollars
Other currencies
British
You write:
IP
56p or 0.56
£1
£ 1.20
£3.75
£5m
£5.5m
You say:
one penny
or one pence
or one p
fifty-six pence
or fifty-six p
one pound
or a pound
one pound twenty
or one pound twenty pence
three pounds seventy-five
or three pounds (and) seventy-five pence
five million pounds
five point five million pounds
or five and a half million pounds
or five million, five hundred thousand pounds
20.11 Countries and nationalities
To talk about people and things from a particular country,
you have to know three words:
- the adjective used to refer to the country
- the word used for a person from the country
- the word used (with the) to refer to the whole nation.
Usually the word used for a person is the same as the
adjective. The word used for the nation is the plural of this.
However, in some cases there is a different form for the
person. Apologies to countries not included in the list on the
next page.
Reference section 115