John, John, John,
little did the Brits realize when the Colonies were revolting but the internal
combustion, gasoline fired, reciprocating engine had already been invented.
It was invented in the soon to be formed township of Penfield, Neu Yawk by a
chap with the moniker of Leon.
While he did his darnedest to keep the invention secret he had found a need for
a device to count the times his engine had revolved before it seized. (you see
he was using an oil manufactured by Lucas).
He then invented the revometer. Since the revometer had counted several times
before the engine siezed (see oil manufacturer above) he called it Revs Per
Moment since he didn't have a good chronometer (they were being manufactured
by Smiths you know).
Hence 'revs', 'spins', and r's per m.
Hope this clears things up for those of you across the great water. We here in
the colonies have had this straight in our minds since, oh, it's probably
1773 or so.
Jim...... by the way Sir, my middle name is Briton. Does that qualify me
for some sort of award?
jonmac wrote:
> >Dave's done 110 in Nigel (And had it up to 9500 rpms.)
>
> It's been a long time since I was confused by hood/bonnet, wing/fender,
> trunk/boot blah blah - but ...
> why is rpm trans-Atlantic pluralised? Revs or revolutions per minute means
> rpm, so why does another 's' go on the end of rpm? This issue is causing me
> a considerable loss of sleep.
>
> John Mac
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