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[+] -10 points 5 months ago (11 children)

I'm being accurate. "Knots" is "nautical miles per hour," as you correctly described.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    All you're doing is being a grammar nazi to someone who at most said the equivalent of "$30 million dollars", which is technically, thanks to the dollar sign, "thirty million dollars dollars".

    You knew what they meant. I knew what they meant. Everyone knew what they meant. There was absolutely zero ambiguity, so you just come off looking like a prick.

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  • [–] -2 points 5 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Being a prick is not a reason to be proud.

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  • [–] -1 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Possibly not.

    But "We know what he meant" when someone demonstrates that they don't know what they are talking about has proven to be dangerous.

    I wouldn't hire a mechanic who thought cats traveled at miles per MPH. Why should I listen to someone talk about boats who thinks "knots per hour" is a speed?

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    If we are being really pedantic. Knots is a measure of distance, and the fact that people have been using that wrong for several centuries does not turn a rope tied at one point into a time-changing object.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    fact that people have been using that

    The way language works is that people use things and they become correct.

    There's things I hate, too, like "yea" now being a spelling for "yeah". But it's useless to fight it.

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