Selling Britain Short
SIR,—Mr George Booth, your correspondent of July 29, is welcome to banish stones and fathoms, but we should keep knots. A knot is one nautical mile per hour, and a nautical mile is one minute of latitude. It is thus invaluable to the sea or air navigator as a unit of speed, being directly related to the surface of the earth. (I suspect that as a technicality it is much older than 'Victorian'.)
Kilometres are also related to the size of the earth: in theory its circumference is 40,000 km. But they are less satisfactory than nautical miles because they are not related to degrees of latitude.
The word 'knot' may be difficult for foreigners: but it is short and neat and its alternative should be so too. I leave it to your word-spinners to invent one.
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