Talk:Mile/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

[the old measurement is] A third of the old measurement

A third of the old measurement? Really? A league isn't an official unit of measurement anywhere. Sure, it used to be (hence old) but I don't know anyone who has ever used it in their life, nor do I know anyone who can tell me precisely how long/far it is - for a fact. So when we say "the old measurement", how old would a person have to be to have used this? A hundred? Yes, yes, I'm nit picking. My point is (and it is opinion so it may well be wrong, go ahead and tell me your better opinion) that Leagues don't really seem relevant and don't help to actually explain what miles are. (It was very interesting though! I'll rock this out at some nerdy party where I require some archaic and obscure information! For sure, thanks!)
Oh yeah... The "old" unit of measurement, in most countries, is a mile. In New Zealand, anecdotally of course, none of my peers use a mile - and half of them probably don't know how big a mile is. (Hence, this article is very useful for when we must deal with Americans and some British senior citizens). Great article, I'm just opining. Offering a different perspective. I hope. 125.236.211.165 (talk) 12:36, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Exact mile length ambiguity

It seems that there is an ambiguity in this article pretaining to the definition of the length of a mile.

In the "1 mile" box, it says that a mile is equal to 1760.000003 yd, but in the article, it claims that "It is defined to be precisely 1,760 international yards"

I think that this is due to the calculation roundoff error in the "Unit of length" template box calculations. Can someone figure how to rectify this problem possibly?

--cinderblock 07:22, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Conversion

Dudes, 8/5 = 1.6, not 1.625 as stated in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.141.71.130 (talk) 12:31, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and the part "at less than 1% high" in the last sentence of the top section is a bit confusing to me. Take 1 mi: 1×8÷5 = 1.6 km -- by this ratio (1.6) the approximation should be slightly less (than the 1.609... one). Should it be "at less than 1% less than the actual value" instead? (or something else that is even clearer) -- Tonyngkh (talk) 18:30, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Usage of the mile

I've added this little bit in here - I think it's relevant and interesting / useful to have along with the rest of the article. I'd rather that it didn't point to metrication but to a specific page detailing Usage of the mile which I think would be good to have but I can't find one by that name or with similar content and don't have time at the moment to start it. Also, being a bit of an amateur, I don't know the template thingy which puts 'see also' at the top (like the { { main } } one) so if you know and can change it that would be good - and then I'd learn! Iancaddy 00:40, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Dutch Mile

I added the second Dutch mile, the one "from the Netherlands" and by definition 1 kilometer, perhaps there should be an English language article about the Dutch metric system (basically using the units, but not the words of the SI). The older, longer Dutch mile has Dutch in the "from Holland" meaning. ThW5 12:41, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, you give the 19th of a degree mile, but there was also a Dutch mile of exactly a fifteenth of a degree, then estimated at about 7157 metres, though it should have been 7407 metres. Or is it the same mile and a 15th of a degree at the latitude of The Netherlands corresponds to a 19th at the equator? Or is there a third mile, the Hollandse mijl (Hollandic mile), of a twentieth of a degree and differing from the Duytsche mijl? --MWAK 20:07, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

My goodness, the problem with the Hollandic mile is that it is not exact defined, that is there are exact definitions (from different periods and all) but they vary quite a lot, it is a distance one could go walking in an hour, somewhere in between 3 and 6 km, though the preference seems to be on 5,555.56 m. Duytsche is to be understood as German, which was the one the Dutch used as nautical mile, it is true that this mile could also be translated as Dutch miles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.53.234.50 (talk) 12:04, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Arab Mile (mil)

I find myself in the embarassing possition of having started researching the Arabic Mile, but not enough time to write anything coherent. So, here are my references and links:

Archaeogeodesy [[1]]

Al-Khorezmi and the dawn of Algebra [[2]]

The Origin of English Measures [[3]]

The Structure of Linear Units [[4]]

Columbus and the Invention of Discovery [[5]]

That last references cites the Arabic Mile as being a rather long 1973.5 meters, causing some confusion to Christopher Columbus, making him think that Asia was a lot closer westward from Europe than it actually was. Josh-Levin@ieee.org 23:12, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

The History and Trivia sections

The history section is devoid of useful information, yet contains many inaccuracies and seems like a spoof of some kind. It does no favours to either Wikipedia or to the article on the mile. It's also off-topic since there's a perfectly good article on the furlong with a much more accurate explanation of that unit's history. All that's needed in the article on the mile is a mention that there are 8 furlongs in the English/American mile. I have therefore removed this section until it can be rewritten as a proper history of the mile.

I'm also minded to remove the 'Trivia' section as it contains, well, trivia! This is also off topic and not useful in an encyclopaedia article. Chris Jefferies 23:05, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Apologies - I confused myself :-) The 'Trivia' section I had in mind is actually in the furlong article. Chris Jefferies 23:12, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

New summary text for "original mile"

Well this topic seems to attract more passion that one would think. I've rewritten the paragraph on "original mile" and tried to reflect an accurate summary of various sources, including the extensive back-and-forth on this and other talk pages. And to avoid writing an essay about it. One thing to keep in mind that the concept of a definition of measurements, in a modern sense, is a modern one; for example there were several versions of "mile" at the time of the Romans, and even the arguably most common one (1000 "paces") is inexact since different calculations from different sources yield different estimates of what exactly a "pace" (or thus, Roman foot) was. Similarly, as the "mile" traveled down the ages, various and conflicting definitions (some by tradition, some by statute) appear. Thus, even around 1600, there was a "statute mile" but at the same time there were different "miles" in use in the British Isles. But after wading through quite a bit of material, I concluded that what would most interest people was that "mile" derives from the Roman mile, and that the strange definition of 5280 dates from accomodating the "rod" for legal/commercial reasons. Feel free to comment here or on my talk page. --67.170.225.125 20:19, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Length of nautical mile

The article says that the length of nautical mile "varies depending on which meridian (or great circle) is used", though it should probably say "depending on which part of meridian (or great circle) is used". As far as I know, the length of the nautical mile depends on the latitude only. There's nothing like this in the main "Nautical mile" article. Please correct me if I'm wrong, or correct the article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 134.161.85.71 (talk) 03:09, 4 April 2007 (UTC).

I believe you're right, except that the article is discussing the historical nautical mile, not the current international nautical mile which is defined as 1852 meters, as stated in the article. --Gerry Ashton 05:20, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

In the reference [10], what is the context of "or in some instances any great circle"? It seems to me there might be an intermingling of how the NM is defined and how it is measured or marked on a map -- and these are all covered very well in the next full paragraph. brucemcdon – 18:24, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd say Maloney only partially support the statement in the article. Maloney says "For practical purposes, 1° of latitude everywhere on the earth's surface may be considered to be 60 nautical miles in length: the length of 1° of longitude varies with the latitude, from 60 miles at the equator to zero at the poles (Figure 205c(). Since 1 minute of latitude, then, is everewhere equal to one mile, it is the latitude scale that must be used for measuring distance—never the longitude scale." --Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:51, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks -- that being the case, the ref [10] seems to be off target as a ref for the point being made, with the remainder of the sentence referring as it does to differences of a few feet. What's at issue seems to be the small differences due to the Earth being out of round.

In addition to, and separate from, those two issues, the part of the statement that says, "In some instances any great circle" doesn't add meaning. Meridians are all great circles, and the article has already specified measuring along meridians. Although it is true that you could measure along any GC that is marked in degrees and minutes, maps are made with the meridians marked that way; the fact that there are an infinite number of other GC's that exist (and could be used if marked and scaled on maps) is not very relevant. That being the case, I think this might be clearer -- would you agree?

The nautical mile was originally defined as one minute of arc along a meridian of the Earth.[10] It is a convenient reference since it is fairly constant at all latitudes, in contrast with degrees of longitude which vary from from 1 NM at the equator to zero at the poles.

Navigators use dividers to step off the distance between two points on the navigational chart, then place the open dividers against the minutes-of-latitude scale at the edge of the chart, and read off the distance in nautical miles.[11] Since it is now known that the Earth is not perfectly spherical but an oblate spheroid, the length derived from this method varies slightly from the equator to the poles. For instance, using the WGS84 Ellipsoid, the commonly accepted Earth model for many purposes today, one minute of latitude at the WGS84 equator is 6,087 feet and at the poles is 6,067 feet. On average it is about 6,076 feet (about 1852 meters or 1.15 statute miles). brucemcdon – 19:20, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

That looks good to me, assuming you intend to put actual reference tags in place of [10] and [11]. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 19:42, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

The former English and American Nautical miles, were based on the minute of arc of sphere of equal volume to the earth. Should one calculate this using modern figures, = cbrt(6356752.3*6378137^2) = 6371000.785 m gives 6080.213 ft. The former US nmi is given at 6080.256 and the UK is the rounded 6080 ft, based on a minute of arc of a sphere equal in volume to the Clarke Ellipsoid of 1866. The notion that it applies at a lattitude is an adjustment to match the metric figure. The 'telegraph mile' is a minute of arc at the equator, is usually rated 6087 feet. A sphere of equal surface yields a value different from 6089 feet by a matter of inches. --Wendy.krieger (talk) 07:31, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Italian mile

I have just found in WP articles on "mile" in other languages, that Italian mile (1,83 km) is not equivalent to Roman mile (1,52 km). Would someone of the authors check and correct it here? --Lyonski 12:38, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposed WikiProject

Right now the content related to the various articles relating to measurement seems to be rather indifferently handled. This is not good, because at least 45 or so are of a great deal of importance to Wikipedia, and are even regarded as Vital articles. On that basis, I am proposing a new project at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Measurement to work with these articles, and the others that relate to the concepts of measurement. Any and all input in the proposed project, including indications of willingness to contribute to its work, would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your attention. John Carter 20:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Separate Articles

It'd be nice if there were separate articles about statute miles and nautical miles, so they could be referenced separately in Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stepheng3 (talk • contribs) 18:32, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Nautical mile exists already Thunderbird2 (talk) 18:43, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Major revision

I have made a major revision. My goals were to

• Provide many more references
• Remove material for which I could not find a source
• Emphasize that today "mile" usually means the international mile
• Separate Notes from References so that multiple citations to specific pages in a given work could be made compactly.

Give me a moment to don my Nomex underwear. --Gerry Ashton 18:00, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Mile

Where is the mile still used. I know of the USA and the UK. Where else? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.1.70.249 (talk) 03:29, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Many of the countries that converted to metric recently, still use the regular mile of 5,280 feet. --Wendy.krieger (talk) 08:34, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Idioms?

This seems slightly pointless, as they're sayings not specifically related to the mile, just as a distinction of difference. You wouldn't say "give a centimetre, take a kilometre" would you?Zelphi (talk) 10:07, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Places that have an altitude of one mile

This section needs deleting. It is a list of American cities with an altitude of one mile or more... and that is it. This can not be considered in anyway complete in an INTERNATIONAL encylcopedia, and if it were, the list would be miles long. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grant Gussie (talk • contribs) 14:36, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Why not allow the list to fill out. I'm going to add one now. It shouldn't be a problem if most or all places on the list are in America anyway, since most of the rest of the world uses the metric system and that altitude does not hold any particular significance for them. The list won't necessarily be that long either, since it should include places that are either exactly or very nearly one mile up, not anything above 5,280'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.107.67.131 (talk) 21:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

origin of 5280

Why was 5,280 feet chosen as the length of a mile? 129.120.244.191 (talk) 00:19, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

One theory is that because the furlong (660 feet) was close to the stade (625 roman feet) in length (8 stadia = 1 roman mile) the English mile was made to be 8 furlongs despite the units originally having no connection. Caerwine Caer’s whines 00:45, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

The 'London mile' is in the Roman fashion, that is, 5000 feet. A sea mile is 6000 feet, variously a long thousand of paces, or a short thousand of fathoms. The normal english fashion is to use the same mile for cadastral and iternery measures, this being eight furlongs of forty poles. The corresponding acre being 4 roods, each of 40 (square) perches.

The actual size of the perch (and hence, mile, acre), varies from 5 to 8 yards, eg cheshire mile 2560 yards (pole of 8 yards), the scots mile of 1920 scots ells (being 6*320), the irish or plantation mile of 2240 yards (7 yd = 1 perch), a woodlands mile 1920 yards. A statue mile, defined in an act relating to ale houses in London, defines it in terms of a perch of five and a half yards. The nautical mile of 6080 feet, would suppose a perch of 19 feet, has never been divided this way.

When Maxwell was converting the speed of light to millimetres, the conversion was to convert french toise, to english feet, to sea miles (6000 ft), which was interpreted to be a geographic mile, converted to kilometres at the 'ideal rate' of 1 km = 0.54 minutes of arc. --Wendy.krieger (talk) 08:52, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I was baffled by "iternery"; searching for a definition yielded only a back reference to this page, iirc. Wendy must have meant "itinerary"; hope this helps.

The mile could only be defined by surveyor's measures – you don't have a measuring rod, or even a measuring tape, which is one mile long! So, as Wendy points out, it was defined in terms of the perch or rod, which is 1⁄40 of a furlong. The furlong (and hence the perch) were fixed by the definition of the acre – one acre of land was the area of 1 furlong × 4 perches or 160 square perches. In England, the perch was equal to 11 cubits, or 5½ yards. Now eight English furlongs made a distance roughly equivalent to what people called a mile since Roman times, so was a reasonable choice for standardization of the mile. If you then work through those definitions, you will find that the mile becomes 1760 yards or 5280 feet – but those numbers are consequences of the definition, not the reason behind it. See Watson, C. M. (1910), British Weights & Measures, London: John Murray, p. 76, which quotes Arthur Hopton's Baculum Geodeticum, or the Geodetical Staff, published in the early seventeenth century. Physchim62 (talk) 19:13, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

nofootnotes tag

User:Sdrtirs added a nofootnotes tag. The article has many footnotes, in addition to general references. It appears to me that everything either has a footnote, or would be easy to find in a general reference. Perhaps Sdrtirs could specify which passage(s) he has a problem with. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 22:19, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

13th century compromise

In a recent edit, ArthurDuHurst changed a sentence to read "The current definition of the a mile as 5,280 feet (as opposed to 5,000) dates to a 13th century compromise, and was confirmed by statute in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I;".

I would be interested to know what the source was for the information that it was a compromise. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:08, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

A previous writer had said that the number of feet in a mile had been fixed in the 13th century. I just added a couple of words indicating that the number involved a compromise. I researched this question years ago in the library of the university where I was teaching, but now live in China, so I don't have access to an English language library. What I remember is that several numbers other that either 5,280 or 5,000 were involved, probably both divisible by 48 so that the number of yards, and the number of rods, in a mile would both be integers. I think that 5,280 may have been chosen so that the number of acres in a square mile would not only be an integer, but be a fairly round one (640). In those days, I think that the people who took the measurement of distance and area most seriously were tax collectors. (This is my first time on a talk page, so please forgive any formatting error.) ArthurDuhurst (talk) 09:52, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer. Wikipedia has a policy, Wikipedia:Verifiability, that information should be verifiable. A statement that a compromise occurred should be accompanied by a citation indicating what source can be used to verify the statement. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:17, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Indian measures and the use of the mile

This article claims that India uses the mile. As far as I can see, the references don't support this, making no mention of the yard or the mile. Indeed this link[6] suggests that the mile has become obsolete in India. Unless someone can come up with credible evidence to show that the mile is still in use in India I will remove these references from the article. Michael Glass (talk) 08:40, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Your post is confusing. You talk about removing references, but make no mention of changing the part of the article that the reference supports. Nor do you point out exactly what wording in the article you object to, and what you would change it to.

The only mention of use of the mile in India is in connection with surveys. It is possible that surveys may not be redone for long periods of time; perhaps 100 years. It is quite plausible that some surveys that are still the most recent survey of an area may be expressed in miles. A reference has been provided to support this. The USMA article mainly addresses current use of SI and does not address measurements made long ago that are still in force.

Still, it would be better if someone more familiar with India could provide some citations to situations where old mile-based surveys are still in force. --Jc3s5h (talk) 13:54, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry you found my post confusing. There are three references to India in the text of the article. When I examined them the links supplied didn't support the text, so I said I would remove the references. I was referring to the text, of course, but I can see that my meaning was not clear. What I plan to do is to remove both the links and the references to India in the text. I hope that clears up what my meaning was.

Of course i may have made a mistake, so that is why I put a note here. Michael Glass (talk) 13:11, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I think it's the text that isn't clear (and that's my fault, 'cos I wrote that section!) I didn't mean to imply that the mile is in general use in India today – I don't think it is, but I'm willing to be corrected by anyone who knows better. The point I was trying to make is that there is one, very specific use (old survey data) where India uses a unique variant of the mile, infinitesimally different from the international mile. Modern survey data is based on the metre, as the second reference points out, but it is fairly safe to say that there is still some old data in existence: in any case, the unique Indian survey mile still has legal status in India (first reference). The first reference only mentions the foot, but if you redefine the foot you also redefine the yard and the mile. Physchim62 (talk) 13:49, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I have finally been able to get the first link to work. The first reference [7]. The document that is linked is an act of the Indian Congress that appears to outlaw anything other than the standard (i.e. metric) measures. In Part 8, the Miscellaneous section, page 38, clause 79 provides for the "Conversion of non-metric weights and measures into standard units of weights or measures." On page 39, clause 80 enacts the "Non-metric weight or measure not to be mentioned in any document, etc. or to form the basis of any contract after the commencement of this Act." On page 43, section 84 provides for the "Continuance of certain weights and measures during transitional period." However, this applies only to the state of Sikkim. The Schedule of the Act (page 44) mentions two measurements for the foot, the yard and the mile. The slightly lower one applies to the Survey of India. From the context of the act, this table was provided for conversion of units only, so it is evidence that the use of these measures was being phased out. I believe that this information could be useful in the article. However, it may be better placed if it was in its own section. Michael Glass (talk) 12:31, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Reversion of 10-Mar-2010

After I reverted the changes, I ended up doing the corrections myself. Martinvl (talk) 16:15, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Cleanup needed

This article is in serious need of cleanup in several ways:

1. It needs to be better coordinated with the nautical mile article
2. It needs a sensible place to which the redirects from statute mile and land mile and the like can be anchored; when somebody uses those links, I'm sure that they are doing so in the so-far-unfounded belief that these links will explain that particular mile, not some jumbled hodgepodge of all kinds of units.
3. Many readers will get the erroneous impression that "statute miles" and "international miles" are two different, mutually exclusive things. They are not; the international statute mile is merely a subset, one particular precise definition of a statute mile.
4. There are two different "international miles".
5. The box in the top corner in inappropriate for the article as it stands (it is a box for a "statute mile" article), and poorly designed in the first place.
6. The statement "for many purposes today, one minute of latitude at the WGS84 equator is 6,087 feet and at the poles is 6,067 feet" is bass-ackwards nonsense. It might even be true, in some sense, but it has no purpose here. But as normally used, a minute of latitude at the equator is smaller than a minute at the poles, not larger. Somebody needs to go study up on the geodetic latitude we normally use to express latitudes on Earth.

That's just listing a few of the problems for starters. Gene Nygaard (talk) 12:27, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Gene Nygaard wrote "Many readers will get the erroneous impression that 'statute miles' and 'international miles' are two different, mutually exclusive things. They are not; the international statute mile is merely a subset, one particular precise definition of a statute mile." That depends on what country you are in. Some official NIST publications claim that statute mile is the same as the mile based on the US Survey foot, while the international mile is based on the international foot.

He also writes "there are two different 'international miles'". Are you referring to the international mile and the international nautical mile? --Gerry Ashton (talk) 23:46, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

No, it doesn't depend on what country you are in. A "statute" mile is any mile of 5,280 feet in length. The word "statute" in this terminology, whether the term is used in the United States, Australia, Wales, or Timbuktu, refers to a law passed in the umteenth year of the reign of Elizabeth I, a law quite limited in scope which specified that, in London (i.e., not a broad statute either geographically nor in its purpose), a mile 5,280 feet long (or 8 furlongs or 1,760 yards, not sure how it was actually specified in the statute) will be used for one or two specific purposes.

When people want to distinguish the two miles in general use today, they use "statute mile", or sometimes and somewhat more ambiguously, "land miles", as opposed to "nautical miles" or "sea miles". ("Air miles" are a different story.) Nobody uses the term "international mile" for this disambiguation.

On the other hand, the "international" designation should never be placed on any statute mile other than the one defined not only as 5,280 feet, but with those feet based on the 1959 agreement among the national standards agencies of most countries using English units to redefine the yard as 0.9144 m.

Yes, those are the two "international" miles. That, of course, is another reason why sensible people don't try to distinguish the miles in general use by calling one the "international mile" and the other the "international nautical mile". Gene Nygaard (talk) 12:16, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Every state in the United States has enacted made NIST Handbook 44: Specifications, Tolerances, and Other Technical Requirements for Weighing and Measuring Devices into law a binding law or regulation. That law document, on page 13 of [8] says "The international mile and the U. S. statute mile differ by about 3 millimeters although both are defined as being equal to 5280 feet. The international mile is based on the international foot (0.3048 meter) whereas the U. S. statute mile is based on the survey foot (1200/3937 meter)." Please provide a citation proving this law does not mean what it says. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 14:54, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Are you trying to claim that when we refer to a "statute mile", it refers to some statute of the United States, or even more strangely, to some statute of one of its constituent states? If so, you are badly confused. You had damn well better provide a citation to some source known for its accuracy as well as Wiki-jargon reliablility to back up any such claim, and then I'll show you a zillion reasons why that is not possible.

No state has "enacted" that handbook for the purpose of defining units of measure. Few if any states have "enacted" it at all; all might have incorporated it by reference into some of their administrative regulations, but those regulations are not "enacted", a term of art reserved for use in connection with statutes passed by a legislative body and signed into law by the executive (i.e., not vetoed).

Can you even cite exactly how any particular state uses this handbook, exactly what the regulation says in any one state?

That quote defines what the terms they are using mean; it might not be the best choice of words, but it clearly is not an indication whatsoever of any general usage of the term "statute mile" with that particular meaning.

It is not intended to be a legal definition of anything. It is background information, provided in an appendix, summarizing what has been done at various times in defining and redefining our units of measure. It is boilerplate fodder not seriously reviewed by anyone; it is not part of the rules of the Specifications, Tolerances, and Other Technical Requirements for Weighing and Measuring Devices. Just look at that title; doesn't that tell you anything? That's the purpose for which states have adopted this handbook in their regulations; they haven't adopted it for the purpose of defining miles. The adoptions of this particular handbook by various states is not, even in a remote or peripheral sense, for the purpose of defining units of measure.

By the way, please note also that NIST is not the author of this handbook; it merely publishes it for the convenience of the NCWM, in NIST's role as an advisor to that organization of industry and state government officials.

I can cite you a state statute defining "'One newton' equals three and six-tenths ounces [102.06 grams] or .225 pound [102.06 grams]." N.D. Cent. Code §23-15.1-02.[9] Why don't you just go update our article on the newton to reflect that definition?

Do you think that has any legal effect whatsoever on what a newton means, in that state or anywhere else? It is much less so in the case of regulations, as opposed to statutes.

The U.S. federal law in regard to the definition of the miles is not a matter of statute, either. Never has been. Rather, the current definition was accomplished under the authority Congress had delegated to the experts in our standards agency, and that authority was exercised and became part of the U.S. law with the publication by what was then the National Bureau of Standards, in the Federal Register Notice of 1 July 1959, FR Doc 59-5442, xx F.R. 5348:[10]

• "Effective July 1, 1959, all calibrations in the U.S. customary system of weights and measures carried out by the National Bureau of Standards will continue to be based upon metric measurement standards and, except those for the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey as noted below, will be made in terms of the following exact equivalents and appropriate multiples and submultiples:

1 yard= 0.914 4 meter 1 pound (avoirdupois)= 0.453 592 37 kilogram

• "Currently, the units defined by these same equivalents, which have been designated as the International Yard and the International Pound, respectively, will be used by the National Standards Laboratories of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and United Kingdom; thus there will be brought about international accord on the yard and pound by the English-speaking nations of the world, in precise measurements involving these basic units."

This "law" also provides the limited purposes for which the old U.S. definitions remain in use:

• "Any data expressed in feet derived from and published as a result of geodetic surveys within the United States will continue to bear the following relationship as defined in 1893:

1 foot = 1200/3937 meter

• "The foot unit defined by this equation shall be referred to as the U.S. Survey Foot and it shall continue to be used, for the purpose given herein, until such a time as it becomes desirable and expedient to readjust the basic geodetic survey networks in the United States, after which the ratio of a yard, equal to 0.914 4 meter, shall apply."

You have exhibited a woeful lack of understanding of both the workings of the English language and of the legal system. It is no wonder that this article is in such a confused, shambled state. Gene Nygaard (talk) 17:59, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

(unindent)I was already familiar with one example of state legislation that adopts tables published by NIST. You could argue that Handbook 44 does not really count, because although NIST publishes it, the contents are decided by an organization of state measurement officials. But Special Publication 811 contains similar text ("8 fur = 1 U.S. survey mile (also called "statute mile") = 1 mi = 5280 ft"), and that publication is recognized by the Secretary of Commerce as the official US interpretation of the SI, and is both written and published by NIST.

I suggest it is not just this article that needs cleanup, it is the US customary measurements. My impression is that NIST is staffed with scientists, who use SI, so no one at that NIST is really interested in creating clear definitions for customary units. In the absence of carefully written definitions of customary units, passing comments in appendices provide the only definition for some units.

Another issue is that there is unlikely to be a court case involving minor differences in definitions, so the exact weight that should be given to appendices in NIST documents versus general dictionary definitions will probably never be decided. It is indeed possible that a court might decide, if a case ever came up, that the passages in the NIST documents were merely meant to be informative, and were not binding. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 22:17, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

The fact that the U.S. Survey mile is a "statute mile" does not contradict anything I have said. Furthermore, it does not imply that a 5,280 foot mile based on the post-1959 definition of the foot is not a statute mile.

Nor does it imply that a mile based on the pre-1959 independent standards of the United Kingdom is not a statute mile. That mile is about 3 mm shorter than the mile based on the international yard, whereas the one based on the 1893–1959 U.S. yard is about 3.2 mm longer than the one based on the international yard. So there is about 6 mm difference in U.S. and UK statute miles before the 1959 common definition (officially adopted in the U.S. in the federal register notice cited above, officially adopted in the UK in the Weights and Measures Act of 1964 but already used by the NPL before then).

Furthermore, there is no evidence whatsoever in the actual usage you can find throughout the United States to show that your convoluted misinterpretation is reflected in that usage.

Why do you have so much difficulty understanding what you read?

And the legal situation is more clear than what you say in your last paragraph. You'd be laughed out of court if you came in claiming that

1. The law in this state is nowhere printed in the published laws of the state, but rather
2. It is in a handbook incorporated by reference in our regulations.
3. It isn't in the main text of that handbook but is hidden away among 80 pages of background information appendixes.
4. It is contained within a statement which is intended to show that there is a 3 mm difference between the length of a mile before and after the 1959 redefinition, a difference which survives for limited purposes.
5. But we are not only going to use it for the purposes of that distinction, but also for the purpose of establishing a definition of a particular term used in that statement.
6. This definition of a particular term also precludes any other meaning of the same term.
7. This state's laws take precedence over federal law, despite the fact that the United States Constitution says that "The Congress shall have power: ... To...fix the standard of weights and measures" (Art. I, §8)
8. This is true despite the fact that actual usage in this state, as well as in every other state in the Union, and for that matter throughout the world as well, shows a contrary meaning.

Enough said? Gene Nygaard (talk) 15:11, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Maybe I just need to start with the basics. You do understand, don't you, that the term "statute mile" is not a neologism from the 1960s or '70s in American English? It has been in use for well over four centuries, since the late 1500s. Gene Nygaard (talk) 16:04, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

The definition of many customary units in the US is unclear because there is no statute that sets out to list all the lawful units of measure. There is no statement I'm aware of that is clearly intended to be a binding law or regulation that states whether the new international mile, created by implication by the 1959 Federal Register notice, is entitled to inherit the name "statute mile", or whether that name only applies to the old US mile, which (by implication) is now known as the US survey mile. NIST and popular usage seem to have come to opposite conclusions. The uncertainty probably cannot be resolved, because NIST does not want clear definitons of customary units. They want everyone to switch to SI, so the more confusion related to customary units, the better. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 16:43, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Earlier I asked for a citation; let me clarify. I would like to see a citation to a US court decision, or a US federal law or regulation, that says "statute mile" can mean "international mile", such decision, law or regulation being generally applicable and not limited to some narrow domain. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 16:58, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Definition of “statute mile”

I don’t want to rehash this entire argument, but I have a big problem with a cited source (Appendix 9 of NIST Handbook 44) that’s at odds with the statement it supposedly supports—the unqualified equation of “statute mile” with “international mile”, because at least in the US, a statute mile does not appear to be an international mile. We seem to be alone among developed countries in retaining the pre-1959 definitions for survey units furlong, chain, rod, and link, as well as the survey foot and the survey mile, but absent some convincing citation to the contrary, ’tis as ’tis. I don’t think we need support from decisional law; the Secretary of Commerce has statutory authority for such matters as the 1959 notice in the FR, and such a notice is presumed valid until held invalid.

In any event, the current conflict between the second sentence in the lead section, which (without support) asserts a difference between a “statute mile” and a “survey mile” casts doubt on the article’s credibility. I don’t suggest that we take NIST’s definition as universal, but it should at least be acknowledged. JeffConrad (talk) 01:10, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

I′ve added a tag, per the above. At issue is the assertion, without support, that a “statute mile” is equal to 5280 “international” feet, and which is contradicted by the cited NIST source. JeffConrad (talk) 20:06, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Absent a better idea, I suggest we deal with the different definitions of “statute mile” by changing the second sentence to read as follows:

In contemporary English, a mile most commonly refers to the statute mile of 5,280 feet (1,760 yards)^[note] or the nautical mile of 1,852 metres (6,076.12 ft).^[ref]

The note could be to the effect of

The conversion of the statute mile to SI units varies slightly among English-speaking countries. In Canada and the United Kingdom, which define the mile in terms the international yard of exactly 0.9144 metre, a mile is 1609.344 m; Australia defines the mile as 1609.344 m. In the United States, the statute mile is defined as 5280 US survey feet of exactly 1200⁄3937 metre, and is equal to 1609.3472 m. The difference of approximately 2 parts per million between the US value and the "international" value is insignificant for most practical measurements.

The differences would also need to be reflected in the table, perhaps by reference to the same note. JeffConrad (talk) 08:35, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Jeff, Please reformat your comment so as to make your references accessible without going into the editor. Martinvl (talk) 08:55, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

At this point, I don’t think the references matter—the wording of the text is what we should look at. I left the references in simply so I could copy and paste from this discussion; however, if others think it’s important, I’ve added a {{reflist}} tag, which should be fine unless someone adds another instance in the future. There remains the small issue of how we do a ref within a note.

This note is a paraphrase of what I did in Furlong#Conversion to SI units; it would be nice if there were a way to have a single entry somewhere explaining the differences between the US and the “international” values, and referencing that entry in articles about units for which these differences are relevant. JeffConrad (talk) 09:19, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

A few points:

• I checked the Australian reference - it is not a definitiion per se, but rather a "how to". The Australian definition was made in 1959, when they redefined the yard as 0.9144 metres exactly.
• Both the US measures and UK measures are descended from the statute mile - legislation that was passed before 1776. The differences that crept in are all post-1776 and the 1959 definition pulled the definitions back together except where there was a material difference (hence the US survey mile).

Martinvl (talk) 10:46, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

What I think the Australian reference really says is that, like the rest of the world, Australia no longer really uses the mile. I’d thought of stating this, and that they give only a conversion factor, but this seemed going too far. If it’s thought important, we can state this, but in effect, it’s still a definition. The UK and Canadian statutes are similar; the question here is just how far we want to go.

The “statute mile” was defined in England in “An Acte Againste newe Buyldinges”, 1592, 35 Eliz. 1, c. 6, sect. 3, as 8 furlongs, and consequently 5280 feet. Given the accuracy of measurement standards of that day, I doubt we really know the exact SI equivalent. Before 1959, both the US and the UK yard differed from the current “international” value of 0.9144 m, which was the Canadian value from 1951; the Canadian value was chosen because it was approximately halfway between the UK value of 0.91439841 m and the US survey yard of 0.914401828803658 m. So I don’t think it’s any more correct to say that the “statute mile” is 5280 “international” feet than it is to apply the NIST definition without qualification. I think what I have suggested is a reasonable compromise, subject perhaps to fine-tuning the wording and deciding how to handle the references. JeffConrad (talk) 18:15, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

There can only be one definition of the miles and there can only be one definition of the yard. Any other description is dependent of the definitions. The definition of the mile in Australia is and always has been 1760 yards and since 1959, the definition of the yard is 0.9144 metres. The reference that you dug up is an instruction on how to convert old legal documents into mordern language - if a document states "one hundred miles", you do not have to write "1609344 metres", you can write "1609.344 kilometres". Martinvl (talk) 18:38, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I’m not quite sure I understand the comment; is it an objection to what I’ve proposed? I don′t think there’s any disagreement about the relationship among the mile, yard, foot, and similar imperial or US customary units; it’s rather one of the metric equivalent of the “statute mile”. The article currently asserts that the value is 1609.344 , while NIST indicates the equivalent is 1609.3472 km, so we clearly have two different definitions (whether we use meters or kilometers is irrelevant). I don’t suggest that NIST applies anywhere but the US, but their definition is hardly to be casually dismissed, either. The article’s current wording is contradicted by the cited source (NIST), without any other support, so it cannot stand. I’m simply proposing wording that would recognize that the US and the Commonwealth (or at least a few members) have slightly different definitions of (or values for) the “statute mile”. JeffConrad (talk) 19:20, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

The citation given does not support the notion that the U.S. survey mile is the only one used in the United States and that the international mile is not used there. The NIST document says that the U.S. survey mile is used for surveying only. So a car's speedometer in the United States would theoretically be calibrated in international miles per hour, not that in reality the difference would be detectable. Indefatigable (talk) 16:18, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

The diffrence is 3.2 mm in one kilometre - probably less than the uncertainty associated with measurement of length when the Mendenhall Order was made. Martinvl (talk) 16:29, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

NIST SP 811 simply equates “statute mile” with the US survey mile; it says nothing about what is actually used. The article currently says, without support, that a “statute mile” is equivalent to the “international” mile, while the US survey mile is slightly different. I agree that the difference is less than the precision of most measurements (though it could matter at the edge of a region using state plane coordinates), but this is really irrelevant unless we restrict the precision of the SI equivalents so that the difference is no longer apparent, which seems like the tail wagging the dog.

I’ve proposed wording that does not conflict with the NIST citation, and at the same time does not suggest that NIST speak for the everyone; if someone has a better idea, let’s hear it. But what we currently have an unsourced statement that contradicts a citation of a reliable source; by WP:V and WP:RS, this cannot stand. JeffConrad (talk) 19:55, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify the restoration of the {{Citation needed}} tag: a citation is needed to support the claim that a statute mile is 1609.344 meters; the NIST citation at the end of the sentence puts the value at 1609.3472 metres. The difference may not be much (about 2 ppm), but it’s a difference nonetheless. JeffConrad (talk) 20:50, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Maybe one of aims of any cleanup should be the removal of all explicit citations from the lede (as permitted by WP:LEDECITE. This will mean either moving the last paragraph in the lede into the body of the article and maybe making a short refernce to in in the lede. Everything else in the lede is already in the body of the article albeit poorly written. Martinvl (talk) 06:50, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I’m not quite sure why we’d need to move the last paragraph in the lead, but moving citations from the lead to the body seems reasonable—by putting the citations in less terse descriptions, it should be easier to make it clear which citation support which statements.

I’m not sure we need to fix everything at once, though—my initial concern is in fixing the implication in the lead that a “statute mile” is equal to the “international” mile, while the US survey mile is not. The first section Statute mile essentially says this, though more by implication than direct statement. Though I don’t have ready access to sources on the history of British units, I have no doubt that “statute mile” ultimately derives from the Act of 1592. I also don’t know how the exact value of the British mile prior to 1959 compared with the 1592 value, but because the value of the British mile changed in 1959, it’s unlikely that the current “international” value could be seen as covered by the 1592 statute any more than it could be seen as covered by the statement in NIST SP 811. In effect, “statute mile” is imprecise beyond referring to “5280 feet” because the exact value of “feet” varies slightly between the US and other definitions. What’s needed is to make the lead, the table, and the rest of the article clearly convey this. For the most part, I think in recent years “statute mile” has been used to refer to a “land mile” that is different from a nautical mile, though without an authoritative source, this article probably should not make such a statement.

So can we agree that a “statute mile” is 5280 feet, with slightly varying definitions of “feet”, and that its value is as validly given by the US survey mile of 1609.3472 m as by the “international” mile of 1609.344 m? JeffConrad (talk) 21:44, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I would rather say that the "Statute mile" is defined as 5280 feet and that the US mile (survey mile) and the UK mile were "refinements" of the original measure which differed, but well within the relative uncertainty of the original statute mile and that the international mile was a compromise between the two. It would appear to me that the only industry that required length to be accurate to six significant figures in imperial/customary units in 1960 was the US surveying industry - the UK surveying industry had switched to a metric grid in the late 1930's and all other high-precision work was done in metric units. Martinvl (talk) 07:30, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I have done a little more reading - it would appear that the the British standard yard has been shriking at the rate of one part per million every thirty years, that the Mendenhall order of 1895 reiterated the 1866(?) US approximation of the metre being 3937/3600 yards (made against copies of the 1799 Borda standard) as being "good enough" and that a British reconcilliation of the standard yard against the metre made in 1895 exactly matched the current international yard. Ideally the article on the yard needs to revamped before takling the mile.Martinvl (talk) 07:59, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

The “statute mile” was defined as 5280 feet, in the Act of 1592 (and perhaps others). As you noted, the Australian regulations give only a conversion factor. While the Canadian and UK statutes still appear to define a mile, they do so in terms of the yard. I’d be more inclined to say that a “statute mile” is 5280 feet, and that the value of a foot varies slightly among English-speaking countries. What we cannot reasonably say is that a “statute mile” is 1609.344 m, and is consequently different from a US survey mile—the latter is simply one interpretation of the former. The differences over the years of the exact values well may be less than the measurement capability in most cases, but I think we should be careful how far we go without a source.

The US Act of 1866 defined the meter as 39.37 inches; the Mendenhall order of 1893 turned things around, defining the yard as 3600⁄3937 meter.

Certainly, the article on the yard (as well as others on units for which the “US survey” values differ from those in other English-speaking countries) should be similarly cleaned up, but I don’t think that’s a reason to delay at least partially fixing this one. At present, we have a statement that’s contradicted by its cited source, and which I think is wrong. Under WP:V, any editor could remove it; I’d prefer simply cleaning it up. JeffConrad (talk) 21:52, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I reverted the change because the statement remains unsourced, and the change is clearly non-consensus. Again, please don’t remove the tag unless you can supply the missing citation, and additionally reconcile it with the NIST citation. In case I still do not make myself clear: per WP:V, please provide a reliable source for the statement “In contemporary English, a mile most commonly refers to the international mile of 5,280 feet . . . 1,609.344 metres”, and show that the source is clearly superior to the NIST citation that says otherwise. Yet again, the disagreement is not over 5280 feet, but rather the metric equivalent. Let’s try to reach agreement rather than making disruptive edits. JeffConrad (talk) 07:49, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I have rereverted but included an additional reference. I hope that you are happy with the reference concerend. This article, as it stands, is a mess and quite frankly, the lede should be the last part to be rewritten as it is a summary of the entire article. Moreover, when it is rewritten, all references should be removed from the lede as they should appear in the artcile proper. Meanwhile, missing sections include the origin of the word "mile", how the mile and the league are related, paying particular attention to the league in some countries being less than the mile in others. I suggest that you read the equivalent articles in some of the Wikipedia versions (Dutch, German) and also following references [11] and [12]. Martinvl (talk) 08:37, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I have reverted once again, because the reference does not support the statement—it simply cites the UK statute that I already mentioned. In case you haven’t noticed, the US is nearly five times the size of the UK, so to say that UK definition constitutes the “most common” usage when NIST say otherwise is absurd. I don′t suggest that NIST are controlling, but simply that they carry at least equal weight as the UK definition. I agree that the article could be improved, but that in no way justifies an unsupportable statement in the lead. The section Statute mile essentially has it right, recognizing that the SI value depends on the definition of the yard, for which there are two slightly different values among English-speaking countries. Can we not simply clean this up a bit and reflect it in the lead? This would seem preferable to taking this to AN/I, which is we’re headed if you continue to make clearly non-consensus edits.

Let me repeat: per WP:V, I have challenged the statement “a mile most commonly refers to the international mile of . . . 1,609.344 metres”; citation of the UK statute, or the Canadian statute, the Australian regulation (all of which I provided, incidentally), or combination thereof supports “most commonly refers to . . . 1609.344 metres”.

We should also be clear on references: the Canadian and UK statutes, and the various NIST publications are WP:RS; Wikipedia (in any language), as well as the two above, are not.

Once again: from a practical standpoint, a “statute mile” most likely refers to 5280 feet, without regard to the exact SI equivalent. In this regard, a dictionary may be the best guide to “most common” usage; Merriam-Webster′s 11th Collegiate Dictionary, Merriam-Websters Third New International Dictionary, and the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language go no further than 5280 feet (the last gives the metric equivalent of 1609 meters, clearly not addressing the 2 ppm difference between the US and “international” definitions). The OED does not mention the “statute mile”.

Again, again, again: let’s find a way to address this without edit warring. I really, really do not want to take this to AN/I, but shall do so in preference to continued edit warring.

I have no problem with citing the BIPM SI brochure for the nautical mile, but think we should first sort out the “statute mile”. JeffConrad (talk) 09:35, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I looked up the word "statue" in the Concise Oxford Dictionary. It said "A written law of a legislative body". The "statute mile" was the mile written into law during Queen Elizabeth I's reign and was, I believe, only called a "statute" mile informally to distinguish it from the London mile (of 5000 feet) (or any of the other miles that were around at the time, and I know of at least one other). The law however only knew of its own mile so did not use the word "statue", not did it use the word "international". I beleive that you are trying to find a defintion that does not exist. If it does exsit, please do something about it yourself rather than being nnegative and plastering unwanterd "citation needed" signs. Martinvl (talk) 14:05, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

We don’t disagree on the definition of statute. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary gives “statute, adj.: fixed by statute : STATUTORY <a statute mile>”. Though I don’t have a source, I suspect you are right about the import of the Act of 1592, and that “statute mile” probably has its origin in that Act. This obviously was some time ago, and at least in my lifetime, “statute mile” has mainly been used to distinguish a “land” mile from a nautical mile (and in recent years, I’ve hardly seen it used at all, even in countries that stubbornly refuse to metrify). The only real answer may need to come from an authoritative source on the history of the use of the term. We don’t have such a reference, and even if we did, it might not prove dispositive.

You, as well as Gene Nygaard above, seem to argue that if we have a statute that defines a mile, we then have the definition of a “statute mile”. This isn’t unreasonable, and probably well describes the situation in England following the Act of 1592. But it could also be argued that it’s a synthesis that constitutes WP:OR. And there are some obvious problems with trying to apply that synthesis to this article.

1. The Act of 1592 is clearly no longer in effect. Though the Weights and Measures Act 1985 gives a value for a mile, the effect is largely to proscribe its use as a primary indicator in trade, so it’s not clear if the effect of that act is substantially different from the Australia National Measurement Regulations 1999.
2. Far more significant is that the authority of Parliament ends at the UK border, so even if we agree that the Act of 1985 defines a statute mile for the UK, that definition does not apply everywhere, as this article implies.
3. In particular, that definition does not apply in the US, especially when NIST give a slightly different definition. We could argue all day about the absence of a specific US statute that defines a mile, and the argument would likely be to no effect. By way of the U.S. Department of Commerce, NIST have statutory authority over weights and measures, and if they say a “statute mile” is the same as the U.S. survey mile of 1609.3472 m, then it is the same in the US. And if we were to be pedantic, we might note that NIST SP 811 is the only current reference we have that seems to use the term “statute mile”.

What I’ve proposed is that we simply recognize that the US seems to have a slightly different definition of “statute mile” than most other English-speaking countries, and mention both definitions, without suggesting that one is more correct than the other, as the article currently does. Almost the same issue was addressed in Furlong; we discussed solutions, reached consensus, and made the changes without controversy. I don’t see why we can’t do the same here.

I think the best approach would be one similar to what was done in Furlong, so that all English customary units for which UK and US values differ are treated similarly. Even better might put all the supporting references in a common section (preferably in Yard (unit)), and include only the necessary specifics in the other articles. Some simpler possibilities that could be implemented immediately for this article might be

A mile most commonly refers to the UK statute mile of 5,280 feet (1,760 yards, or 1,609.344 metres)^[ref] or the U.S. survey mile of 5,280 U.S. survey feet (1609.3472 m), termed a statute mile in the U.S.^[ref]

Canada statute mile could probably be added with reference to the Canada statute. The result is a bit awkward because I’m not sure I’ve ever seen reference to a “UK statute mile”, and is possibly misleading because the US also use the “international” mile (but we don’t call it a “statute mile”). The phrase “In contemporary English” adds little, and we have no support for it, so it should be removed. Another possibility might be

A mile most commonly refers to the "international" mile of 5,280 feet (1,760 yards, or 1,609.344 metres)^[ref] or the U.S. survey mile of 5,280 U.S. survey feet (1609.3472 m), termed a statute mile in the U.S.^[ref]

I hate to use scare quotes, but they seem necessary because there really isn’t an official international mile.

A mile most commonly refers to a distance of 5,280 feet (1,760 yards).^[ref]

and deal with the US–UK difference with a note or just in the section Statute mile. We’d probably need at least a brief note in the lead to obviate the question of why no metric equivalent was given.

It appears to me that the name "International mile" is only of significance in the United States where it needs to be distinguished from the "survey mile". The NIST document tells me that the name "statute mile" is used unofficially for the "survey mile". In the United Kingdom, the name "statute mile" refers to the defined by Elizabeth I, four hundred years ago. The word "statute" is not in use, oficially or unoffically and no other mile, apart from the nautical mile is in use in the United Kingdom. It should be remembered that in Elizabethan times, it was not possible to measure length with an accuracy of 10^-5 and even with that accuracy, one cannot distinguish between the international mile, the US survey mile and the pre-1959 UK mile. I think that the word "statute" shoudl not appear in the lead, but the section with the heading "Statute mile" should be renamed "Statute and international mile" and should deal exclusively with the evolvment of the international mile of 1959 from statute mile of 1592.Martinvl (talk) 05:23, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I think we agree on the definition that does not exist: a current one for “statute mile”. Everything I’ve been able to find suggests that the “statute mile″ derives from the Act of 1592; I think it’s silly to suggest that the effect was anything other than to establish that distance as 8 furlongs (or 1760 yards or 5280 feet). I completely agree that measurement to a precision of 2×10⁻⁶ was far beyond the capabilities of the time. Again, in recent years, the only time I’ve seen “statute mile” used is to distinguish a “land” mile from a nautical mile. If the mention in the lead simply were to say

A mile most commonly refers to a distance of 5,280 feet (1,760 yards, 1609.344 metres).

Recall that my original objection, despite the seemingly endless discussion, was the implication that the statute mile was “officially” different from the U.S. survey mile. If we avoid “statute”, the problem goes away. We should also remove mention of “statute” from the table.

The more I think of it, the more I think we should avoid “statute mile” altogether except for historical reference to the Act of 1592, hopefully supported by a source (which I think is quite manageable), and perhaps with a bit of history of why this was important. The first section, what ever its title (but preferably without “statute”), should concentrate on the unification of mile among the six parties to the agreement of 1959. We might mention that NIST equate the U.S. survey mile to a “statute mile”, retaining the scare quotes that they use. I would avoid comment on “official” vs. “unofficial”, because in the US, NIST are pretty official, and the scare quotes would probably strongly suggest “unofficial” anyway. JeffConrad (talk) 06:26, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

The term "statute mile" is used in the United Kingdom to define the mile which is defined by statute (as opposed to the London mile, the Scottish mile etc). If you google "statute nautical mile site:.gov.uk" you will see how the word "statute" is used. Martinvl (talk) 07:06, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

In the UK, “statute mile” appears to be equal to the “international mile” of 1760  (approximately 1609.344 m), in the US, a “statute mile” is iequal to a U.S. survey mile of 5280 U.S. survey feet (approximately 1609.3472 m); the current wording recognizes only the UK definition. A Google search suggests that the main use of “statute mile” is differentiation from a nautical mile (when is the last time anyone used a London mile or a Scottish mile?). As I’ve said, the term probably derives from the Act of 1592, which simply defined the mile as 5280 ft; the metric system was not to be deveoloped for another two centuries, so the Act gave no metric equivilent.

I see two ways we could fix the current wording:

1. Mention the two different meanings of “statute mile”. We’d have an issue of sourcing for the UK definition; though we cite a statute and and can cite a definition of statutory, the combination to make “statute mile” is really WP:OR. I have a source (John Lord’s Sizes) that says that the term derives from the Act of 1592, but Lord also gives the metric equivalent using the UK definition.
2. State that a “statute mile” is equal to 5280 ft, and that the exact value (metric equivalent) differs between the US and the UK (and probably Canada and Australia as well). Of the two approaches, this seems the simpler.

With either approach, we’d need to address the the table that currently uses the British definition.

I concede that the {{Citation needed}} tag isn’t the clearest way to illustrate the issue, which is the conflict between the current sentence and the cited NIST source. JeffConrad (talk) 09:12, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I have been doing a bit of research and it appears that there is no consistent use of the prefix "statute" in the UK, except when it is neccessary to distinguish the mile of 1760 yards from any other miles, such as here or when talking about the Scots mile or the London mile. The British legal authorities never got hung up about the change in the definition of the yard (and therefore the mile) in 1960 because it did not really affect anybody - all high accuracy measurements (including surveying) were being done in metric units anyway. In short, I believe that the "statute mile" is "the mile defined by statute of Parliament". Martinvl (talk) 12:51, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

We agree about the official status of the mile in just about every country but the US. But the definition you suggest is valid only for the UK, which is the limit of Parliament’s purview. We have a solid, citable definition from NIST that the “statute mile” is a U.S. survey mile; we could very reasonably change the wording to follow this definition, because there is no guesswork involved. Of course, NIST’s authority is limited to the US, so their definition is no more universal than the one we currently have. The source you link bears out what I’ve been saying—“statute mile” is normally used only to distinguish the mile of 5280 feet/1760 yards/8 furlongs from the nautical mile of 1852 meters. “Land mile” would probably be a better term, but it’s not established and if we were to use it here we’d likely be accused of WP:OR.

Again, I’d like to try one of the two approaches I suggested above. But I don’t want to do so unless we have consensus in principle. JeffConrad (talk) 23:21, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

How about the opening paragraph reading "A mile is a unit of length in a number of different systems. In contemporary English, a mile most commonly refers to the mile of 5,280 feet (1,760 yards, or 1,609.344 metres), often known as the "statute mile" in the United Kingdom or the "international mile" in the United States to distinguish it from the US survey mile (1609.3472 m), the nautical mile (1,852 metres (6,076.12 ft)) or other historic miles.". In keeping with good practice, all references will be removed from the lede, but will be availalbe in the main body of the article. Appropriate Wikilinks will of course be included. I have also removed the reference to the US Survey foot and the league in order to streamline the text.

I think this is on the right track. Several points, though:

1. We should be consistent in use of the comma for digit grouping (common practice is to not use it when the integer part of the value is four digits), and in spelling out or abbreviating units.
2. I think we’d be getting a bit creative in claiming that “statute mile” was commonly used for any purpose other than contrast with a nautical mile. To most people in the US (and I suspect in the UK as well), a mile is a mile—they have no appreciation whatsoever of the difference between 1609.244  and 1609.3472 m. I can’t speak for what’s common in the UK, but I hardly ever see reference to either “statute mile” or U.S. survey mile aside from NIST or laws or documents related to land surveying.
3. I’d omit “or other historic miles” because I think this hardly ever is an objective.
4. I agree with moving the citations from the lead; if they’re placed with the more detailed discussion, it will be far more obvious that a citation supports only one assertion.

So I suggest something like

A mile is a unit of length in a number of different systems. In contemporary English, a mile most commonly refers to the mile of 5280 feet (1760 yards), sometimes known as the "statute mile" to distinguish it from the nautical mile of 1852 metres (6076.12 feet). The exact value of the "statute mile" varies slightly among English-speaking countries. In the United States, it is the U.S. survey mile of 1609.3472 metres; in the most other English-speaking countries, it is the "international mile" of 1609.344 metres.

One shortcoming, of course, is that I’m not sure “international mile” is used much outside of the US, and even in the US, I doubt that it’s used much outside of NIST. Most people simply refer to the mile, and occasionally, the nautical mile.

There of course are other ways to do it. One would be to defer all discussion of the SI equivalents to the body of the article, as I did in Furlong; this would make it easier to discuss the SI conversion in terms of the “international yard”, which was the measure on which the agreement of 1959 was based. Another alternative would be to describe the US–UK difference in a note (though it would seem awkward to give an SI equivalent for the nautical mile but not for the “land mile”). Ultimately, it probably would be best to cover this in Yard (which I think you suggested earlier), but for now, covering it here would seem an improvement.

May I put things into perspective - the only country in the world where miles are used to an accuracy of better that 0.1% is the US - the only use of the mile in the UK is road distances and then only for the general public - official work is done using kilometres - see Driver location signs. The statute/intenational mile is not used in other English-speaking countries, except by historians.

The United Kingdom has also seen the Scots mile (the Royal Mile in Edinburgh is almost one Scots mile in length) which fell into offical disuse in 1707, the London mile which was replaced by the statute mile in 1600 (I think). I did not want to include all of these into the lede, which is why I chose the wording that I did.

I deliberately used SI comparisons in the lede because they are unambiguous and because both the nautical mile and the statute mile are offically defined in terms of metres (at any rate in the UK). Martinvl (talk) 12:42, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

The mention of U.S. survey feet is important because it makes clear that it is still based on 5280 feet rather than a metric definition. Though I normally would use US, I restored the periods here because they’re usually included when the survey mile is mentioned. I remove other because it could be read as referring to any mile other than the "international mile".

I agree that the differences between the US and UK “statute miles” is irrelevant to most people. Even in the US, it’s relevant only with land surveys based on the US State Plane coordinate system; at a distance of 100 miles, the difference is about a foot, which could conceivably move a mailbox from one property to the next (but gunfights have ensued over lesser issues).

We still need to address the use of “statute mile” in the table. Perhaps “international mile” (with an explanation) is the way to do it; officially, there is no such unit, but absent a good source explicitly stating that a UK statute mile is 5280 feet based on the international yard of 1959, “international mile” is every bit as valid as “statute mile”. JeffConrad (talk) 00:11, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

One possible way to simplify things, especially given your last comment: give the SI equivalent in the lead as 1609.3 m, and the need to distinguish the US and UK definitions of “statute mile” goes away. This is the value given in Webster’s New International Dictionary, 2nd ed. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language gives the SI value as 1609 m; Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed., and the OED, 2nd ed., do not even give SI equivalents. We already discuss the exact values in detail in the section Statute mile, so I’m not sure we need do so in the lead. We could then simplify the opening paragraph to

A mile is a unit of length in a number of different systems. In contemporary English, a mile most commonly refers to a distance of 5280 feet (1760 yards, or 1609.3 metres); it is sometimes known as the "statute mile" to distinguish it from the nautical mile of 1852 metres (6076.1 feet), or historic miles. The exact value of a "statute mile" varies slightly among English-speaking countries.

If we thought it necessary, we could include a mention that the differences are discussed in Statute mile. With this rewording, we’d need to add NIST’s definition of “statute mile” to Statute mile, but I think a slight addition there is preferable to the complication in the lead. JeffConrad (talk) 04:29, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I reverted the recent edit of the lead by Michael Glass because it presented several problems:

1. It indicated that “Statute mile” “international mile” both refer to a distance of 1609.344 . I think we indicate pretty clearly in Statute mile that the term derives from the Act of 1592, at which time the metric system did not exist and measurement capability was not sufficiently precise to make such a fine distinction anyway. We don’t even have a source stating that a “statute mile” is 5280 “international” feet (or the equivalent), while we do have one stating that a “statute mile” is 5280 U.S. survey feet. Using the OED, 2nd ed., (s.v. statute, 8b) and the Act 1985, a reasonable case could probably be made that a “statute mile” in the UK is 1609.344 m, but that definition would apply only in the UK.
2. The wording implied that “international mile” is commonly used in the US to distinguish that distance from the U.S. survey mile. I can’t speak with authority on the frequency of use, but I don’t think I’ve ever run across the former term outside of NIST, and even the latter term is seldom seen outside of surveying. Again outside of NIST, the only use of “statute mile” I can recall is to distinguish the “land” mile from the nautical mile.
3. I seem to be repeating myself, but let me try again to calrify what I’m saying: if we are to make a statement (or an implication) that a “statute mile” is 1609.344 m without the qualification that it applies only to the UK, I insist on a reliable, unambiguous source. Such a source must also suffice to overrule NIST SP 811.
4. There were several issues with the wording, mainly that some were superfluous, but I think we should work out the substantive issue first.

I’d like to stick with what we have until we see if the simplification I suggested above finds any support. Again, I think this is the best approach, and it finds strong support in some pretty solid sources. JeffConrad (talk) 06:29, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

May I propose that the first paragraph be rewritten as follows:

A mile is a unit of length in a number of different systems. In contemporary English, a mile most commonly refers to a length or distance of 5,280 feet (1,760 yards, or 1,609.344 metres) and can be traced back to the mile defined by statute durign the reign Elizabeth I, giving rise to the name "statute mile" to distinguish it from the "London mile" of 5000 feet (1.524 km). During the ninteenth century the United States and the United Kingdom used different definitions when redefining the mile with reference to the metric system. At the time the difference was insignificant, but when the definitions were aligned in 1960, surveyors in the United States found it neccessary to retain their original definition, resulting in the U.S. survey mile being 3.2 mm longer than the newly defined "international mile".

Navigators often use the term mile to refer to the nautical mile of 1,852 m (6076.12 ft).

This wording only refers to the original statute mile. The reference that in the US, the "statute mile" is synonymous with the "survey mile" should be moved into the paragraph describing the survey mile. We will of course need to add a short note as to why the difference in the US and UK definitions was insignificant - I believe that the technology of the day made it impossible to measure that accurately, but I need to find a reference. Martinvl (talk) 08:11, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

This seems unnecessarily complicated. A few additional issues:

1. The first sentence implies that the current value for the “international mile” can be traced to the Act of 1592, which isn’t the case. The sentence could also be read as saying that mile can be traced to the Act, which isn’t true, either. The term statute mile is what derives from that Act.
2. The first sentence still implies that a “statute mile” is equal to 1609.344 m, which is only true in the UK (if even there). You and I seem to agree that the difference between the UK and US definitions is insignificant for most people, so why do we need to give the SI equivalent to a precision for which the difference is apparent? The sources I mentioned apparently saw no need to do so. If we follow the lead of Webster’s New International Dictionary, 2nd ed., (which gives the most precise equivalent of any of the dictionaries I mentioned), the problem goes away. This approach seemed fine for Furlong, in which the issue was addressed without the seemingly interminable discussion we’ve had here.
3. The last two sentences are unsupported, and I think incorrect—the evolutions of the UK and US yards are more complex than implied. It should also be noted that the Mendenhall Order of 1893 did not charge the metric conversion given by the Act of 1866—it simply defined the yard in terms of the meter rather than vice versa. I see no need to clutter the lead with the additional detail—we’d do far better to confine this to the section Statute mile.

Again, I think it would be much simpler to go with something like

A mile is a unit of length in a number of different systems. In contemporary English, a mile most commonly refers to a distance of 5280 feet (1760 yards, or 1609.3 metres); it is sometimes known as the "statute mile" to distinguish it from the nautical mile of 1852 metres (6076.1 feet), or various historical miles. The exact value of a "statute mile" varies slightly among English-speaking countries.

If the shift from length (which we really need to begin with) to distance of seems too confusing, I’d suggest using “length (or distance) of”, or simply “length of”. For something that isn’t of special significance, historical is preferred to historic in BrE, and strongly preferred in AmE, so I suggest we use it.

I don’t have a source saying the differences between the UK and US values were insignificant, but I do have one (Lord) saying the differences became apparent by the time of the Second World War:

As machining became more precise the difference between the British and U.S. inch became a problem. During the Second World War, for example, it was readily apparent to aircraft machinists using gauge-blocks from different countries. To eliminate such problems, the national standards laboratories of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States agreed that, effective July 1, 1959, for scientific and technical purposes, 1 yard = 0.9144 meter exactly, which was named the International Yard.

Though he doesn’t mention it, the value agreed on was the Canadian yard, adopted in 1951 (15 George VI, Chapter 31) and chosen because it was approximately halfway between the UK and US values. It also conveniently made the Canadian inch exactly 2.54 cm. JeffConrad (talk) 11:26, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

My interest in the wording of the beginning of the article is to make it simpler and more accessible. I believe the following wording would be shorter, simpler and more direct than the present wording:

A mile is a unit of length. It most commonly refers to a length or distance of 5,280 feet (1,760 yards, or 1,609.344 metres). It is sometimes called the "statute mile" in the United Kingdom or the "international mile" in the United States when it is necessary to distinguish it from the U.S. survey mile of 5,280 U.S. survey feet (1609.3472 m),

There are also the nautical mile (1,852 metres (6,076.12 feet)), and historic miles.

Please note that this proposal is not designed to change the intended meaning, only to express it more succinctly. Other details are better left to the main part of the articles. Michael Glass (talk) 05:20, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I think we’re again rehashing the same ground.

1. I have no problem with the suggested first sentence.
2. For the second sentence, I think the conjunctive or implies that “length” and “distance” are somehow two different entities; using “length (distance)” or perhaps “length (or distance)” should address this.
3. For the proposed third sentence, I would still like to see a source indicating that, in common usage, a “statute mile” has meaning to a greater precision than 5280 feet (1609.3 meters). I have yet to see anything that suggests in current common usage, the term is used other than to distinguish the “land mile” from the nautical mile. Ideally, such a statement should be sourced, but neither the current statement nor the one proposed has a source, either. I have only one source for “land mile” (the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., s.v. mile, 1), but it would seem to suffice. In 1592, of course, “statute mile” was used to distinguish the mile of 8 furlongs from any of other various miles, but that distinction hardly ever arises today. But I don’t really have a problem mentioning this, though I think we should use, as I suggested, historical rather than historic. The distinction in BrE is now slight, but the difference in AmE is still significant; if the former is used, nothing is lost in BrE while something is gained in AmE.
4. In the US “statute mile”, though increasingly rare (we simply say “mile” without worrying about its value to a precision greater than a foot) is more common than “statute mile” (I cannot find the latter in the AHD, Webster’s Second, Webster’s Third, or Webster’s Collegiate, 11th ed., and cannot recall ever seeing it outside of NIST publications)

Keeping to the precision given in several of the sources I mentioned above in the lead and covering the details in the section Statute mile. As I mentioned, we did essentially this in Furlong and resolved in with only brief discussion. If we wish to make the lead more accessible (an objective I fully support), I again suggest something like

A mile is a unit of length in a number of different systems. It most commonly refers to a length (or distance) of 5280 feet (1760 yards, or 1609.3 metres); it is sometimes known as the "statute mile" or "land mile" to distinguish it from the nautical mile of 1852 metres (6076.1 feet), or various historical miles. The exact value of a "statute mile" varies slightly among English-speaking countries.

I see absolutely no reason to give the precision to greater than five figures in the lead, especially because we do not do so for the customary equivalent of the nautical mile. But if we insist on the greater, we force the additional complication of dealing with the slightly different values of the “statute mile” in the UK and the US. Incidentally, BIPM recommend omitting the digit grouping indicator for values less than 10,000, which is why I’ve suggested doing it this way.

I’m all for making it more succinct and accessible—what I’ve suggested would do this. JeffConrad (talk) 07:30, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick response. I'm glad you like my first sentence though I do note that you have kept the longer sentence in your proposal. As for the second sentence, I agree with you that using two words for the same concept is potentially confusing. I would therefore suggest that we use just length. As there is contention about the wording of the third sentence I think it would be better if I left that as it is at the moment. This would mean a change of wording to this:

A mile is a unit of length. It most commonly refers to a length of 5,280 feet (1,760 yards, or 1,609.344 metres).

Are there any comments or suggestions about this proposal? Michael Glass (talk) 11:57, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I have no problem with the shorter wording, and this proposal certainly doesn’t make things any worse. Upon rereading, I think that in replacing mile with it would lead to a vague antecedent (which could be either mile or unit); using the term instead should eliminate the problem. We also should eliminate the commas from the four-digit values, because

1. The MOS at WP:Manual of style (dates and numbers)#Delimiting (grouping of digits) allows either the use or omission of commas, but the article originally omitted them; the commas were first added in this edit, which I think was a violation of MOS:STABILITY. I normally would not worry about such matters, but
2. The BIPM recommendation (The International System of Units (SI), 8th ed., at 5.3.4) is to omit the comma is further reason to return to the original style.

We should, of course, treat the comma uniformly throughout the article, which we currently do not.

Again, I object to stating the SI equivalent to a gratuitous precision that is inconsistent with how we treat the US/Imperial equivalent of the nautical mile. Thus I suggest

A mile is a unit of length; the term most commonly refers to a length of 5280 feet (1760 yards, or 1609.3 metres).

JeffConrad (talk) 06:25, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I wish we could find some way to get this off dead center. As nearly as I can tell, I’m simply suggesting that the lead match what’s said in Statute mile, which begins

The statute mile was so-named because it was defined by an English Act of Parliament in 1592, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. It was defined as being 1,760 yards (5,280 feet, about 1609 metres).[4] For surveying, the statute mile is divided into eight furlongs; each furlong is ten chains; each chain is four rods (also known as poles or perches); and each rod is 25 links. This makes the rod equal to 5½ yards or 16½ feet in both Imperial and U.S. usage.

The SI equivalent could even be given as 1609.3 metres without requiring any other changes. It’s not clear why it’s necessary to be more precise in the lead than in the body of the article. The greater precision is not addressed until later, beginning with

The exact conversion of the mile to SI units depends on which definition of the yard is used.

It seems to me that what I’ve suggested is a more succinct version of the above. Why can we not say this in the lead? Or am I missing something? JeffConrad (talk) 02:50, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Jeff, first of all I would like to thank you for your careful analysis of what I suggested and for the improvements that you proposed. I would find your wording acceptable with just one change: the word about. Here is what I suggest:

A mile is a unit of length; the term most commonly refers to a length of 5280 feet (1760 yards, or about 1609.3 metres).

• It is correct to the nearest 10cm.
• The difference of 44mm is large enough to justify the use of the word about.
• A more precise definition can come later.

Is that wording is OK with people? Michael Glass (talk) 10:33, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

This is fine with me—I’d thought of including about myself. With this wording, I would not even mention the US “statute mile”/survey mile in the lead—doing so accurately requires wording that I think is unnecessarily complicated. And aside from fairly technical usage, almost no one cares; we cover the technical stuff pretty well under Statute mile for those who do care. I would have this and the next sentence read as follows:

A mile is a unit of length; the term most commonly refers to a length of 5280 feet (1760 yards, or about 1609.3 metres). It is sometimes known as the "statute mile" or the "land mile" when it is necessary to distinguish it from the the nautical mile of 1852 metres (6076.1 feet).

Simple, and probably addressing 99+% of readers. If people want to append “or various historical miles”, this would be fine with me, though I’m not sure we need it with the present tense. “Statute mile” may be the more common term (though I hardly ever see it in US usage), but I think “land mile” better conveys the sense of the distinction that is to be made. If we include both, we’re covered. JeffConrad (talk) 03:37, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I have now changed the beginning of the article as per our discussion. I believe that we should mention the difference between the Statute/International mile and the US Survey mile in the introduction. However, I would recast the sentence, perhaps like this:

In the United Kingdom the mile is sometimes called the "statute mile" while in the United States it may be called the "international mile" when distinguishing it from the U.S. survey mile which is about 3.2mm longer. There is also the nautical mile (1,852 metres (6,076.12 feet)) as well as various historic miles.

This is simpler than the present wording but though it phrases the information differently I believes that it preserves the essential meaning of the present version. Are there any comments or suggestions? Michael Glass (talk) 12:49, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

With all due apologies for pride of authorship, I disagree on what’s essential for the lead, think what I suggested conveys it better and more succinctly. The slight rewording of the present second and third sentences retains as many problems as essential information:

• The implication of the reference to the “international mile” is misleading. I can’t speak for the UK, but in the US, a mile is usually called just that. Though an adjective is rare, “statute mile” is probably more common than anything else. And most of those who use it have no idea that it’s other than 5280 feet—the 3.2 mm distinction between the “international mile” and the U.S. survey mile doesn’t enter the picture. As I said, I’ve hardly ever seen reference to either outside of NIST publications.
• It still ignores the fact that “statute mile” is used in the US to mean something different from what it means in the UK. I further maintain that it probably has two different meanings in the US: the technical one given by NIST, and the common one for people who don’t care about (and are probably even unaware of) the 3.2 mm difference.

If we’re going to retain the present detail, we need to do so accurately, which I think requires giving equal weight to the US and UK definitions of “statute mile”, and I think this will make the text far more unwieldy than necessary. Again, I maintain that “statute mile” is primarily used to distinguish a “land mile” from a nautical mile, and would offer the AHD definition if it’s felt that support is needed. This definition also supports my contention that, at least in the US, “statute mile” = “land mile” = 5280 feet = 1609 meters. And again, “land mile” is a far better description of the contrast with nautical mile—“statute mile” leaves the impression that other miles (which now means essentially “nautical mile”) are other than statutory. While such a distinction may have been useful 300 years ago, it’s really no longer the case—can you point to anything that suggests otherwise?. JeffConrad (talk) 20:15, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments, which I read carefully.

One difference between us is whether or not the difference between the mile (Statute mile, International mile) and the US Survey mile should be mentioned in the introduction to the article. This, of course, is a matter of opinion and I would like to leave that aside for a moment and look at the facts you have presented.

The most striking thing was that the term Statute Mile is used in the United States and that it is used to distinguish it from the nautical mile. A check of the online dictionaries supported what you said, and this is fine by me. You also said that most Americans would not be aware of the difference between the International mile and the US Survey mile, and I have little doubt that this would be true, too. However, there is a difference, and though it is small, it is significant.

Here is an alternative way of expressing the information:

The mile is sometimes called the "statute mile" or "land mile" to distinguish it from the nautical mile (1,852 metres (6,076.12 feet)). In the United States, the terms "international mile" and "U.S. survey mile" distinguish between the international definition of the mile and the US Survey mile which is about 3.2mm longer. There are also various historic miles.

Jeff, do you think the above suggestion is accurate. Michael Glass (talk) 12:27, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

It’s accurate but incomplete, because those who speak of “international mile” and U.S. survey mile also equate the latter with the “statute mile”. Thus “statute mile” arguably has two meanings in the US: one that differs slightly from the “international mile”, and one that is sufficiently imprecise that it could apply to either the “international mile” or the U.S. survey mile. Though I obviously haven’t done a survey, I am sure the latter meaning is the one used by the vast majority of Americans. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone, including a few civil engineers I’ve worked with, refer to the more technical terms (though I concede I never asked). I sometimes do geodetic calculations, and always treat a foot as 0.3048 m. In some cases, this may be at odds with USGS data that used the U.S. survey foot, but the difference just doesn’t matter. Anything precise is based on the meter anyway.

Again, if we must mention the U.S. survey mile in the lead, what we say should be complete and accurate. We could probably do it with a note as we do now, but I find this awkward—just as I find the repetition of international and U.S. survey mile in the same sentence.

However we do it, we should express the customary equivalent of the nautical mile to the same precision as we express the SI equivalent of the mile. I would also refer to the nautical mile of 1852 metres to avoid the double parentheses. If reference to other miles is felt necessary, I again urge historical rather than historic. The meanings have become essentially the same in BrE, but differ slightly in AmE—the latter connotes something of particular significance rather than simply a reference to the past (see SOED, 6th ed., s.v. historic 3—this is the primary meaning in AmE). JeffConrad (talk) 20:27, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

[unindent] Agreed about the double parentheses, the use of historical and too much repetition. Here is another suggestion:

The mile is sometimes called the "statute mile" or "land mile" to distinguish it from the nautical mile of 1,852 metres (about 6,076 feet). In the United States, the term mile is also used for the "U.S. survey mile" which is about 3.2mm (slightly more than one eighth of an inch) longer. There are also various historical miles.

This is shorter than the previous suggestion, but it does not mention the term international mile. If it was thought necessary to mention this in the introduction then another sentence could be added to the effect that this term could be used to distinguish between it and the US survey mile.

I hope that this answers at least some of your problems with the previous suggestion. Michael Glass (talk) 14:06, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I think this would probably work. Nonetheless, I would propose

A mile is a unit of length; the term most commonly refers to a length of 5280 feet (1760 yards, or about 1609.3 metres). This mile is sometimes called the "statute mile" or "land mile" to distinguish it from the nautical mile of 1852 metres (about 6076 feet). In the United States, mile is also used for the U.S. survey mile of 5280 U.S. survey feet, which is about 3.2 mm (slightly more than ⅛ inch) longer. There have also been various historical miles of lengths other than 5280 feet.

• To me, This (the mile of 5280 feet) avoids the illogic of “the mile differs from the mile”—see if this is OK.
• “the term” isn’t needed here because putting mile in italics is essentially the same thing.
• There is no need for scare quotes on U.S. survey mile because it has a real definition.
• If we must mention the U.S. survey mile in the lead, I think we should make clear that it’s a mile of 5280 feet, but that the feet are slightly different. This preserves the familiar relationships among the mile, furlong, chain, rod, yard, and foot.
• We should be consistent in the use of grouping commas. As I’ve said, I favor following BIPM (and technically, the original style for this article), but I’m not going to fight over it.
• We really should give the customary equivalent of the nautical mile to the same precision as the SI equivalent of the “land mile”, especially if we are concerned enough about the 3.2 mm difference between the “international mile” and the U.S. survey mile, but I’m not going to quibble about it.
• The BIPM and WP:MOS call for an nonbreaking space between the value of a quantity and an appended unit symbol.
• I think we should be consistent in not spelling out an equivalent of a value that we give in figures.
• I think “historical” is by definition past tense.
• Giving “historical miles” some context makes it less of a nonsequitur.

JeffConrad (talk) 09:15, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Jeff, I like the way you've polished the wording. It is a distinct improvement on my draft, though I would prefer italics to quotation marks. My major remaining concern is that is that the passage could be misread as claiming that the US survey mile is 3.2mm longer than the nautical mile. To prevent that misreading, the passage can be changed like this:

A mile is a unit of length; the term most commonly refers to a length of 5280 feet (1760 yards, or about 1609.34 metres). This mile is occasionally called the international mile or, to distinguish it from the nautical mile (1852 metres, about 6076.12 feet), the statute or land mile. In the United States, mile is also used for the U.S. survey mile of 5280 U.S. survey feet, which is about 3.2 mm (slightly more than ⅛ inch) longer than the international mile. There have also been various historical miles of lengths other than 5280 feet.

I know that is longer and more ponderous, but I think it is less likely to be misconstrued. What do you think? Michael Glass (talk) 14:09, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

A few comments:

• Your point about which mile the U.S. survey mile is being compared with is well taken.
• The proposed wording is indeed ponderous; I had to read it a couple of times to understand it. And I think it also would get us back into several problems we’ve tried to avoid.
  • “International mile” is not a common term; I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it outside of NIST, so I think it’s misleading to mention it as even an occasional synonym (do a Google search for “international mile”).
  • Giving the precision to two decimal places gets right back to the differing definitions of “statute mile” between the UK and the US: the latter is 1609.35 m.
  • It would mention the US survey mile without also mentioning that it is the formal equivalent of the statute mile in the US.

It’s very tough to state all of this both simply and accurately; if we want to be accurate, I’m afraid we need to say more. I’ve already discussed the simple version; here’s a possibility for a longer one:

A mile is a unit of length, most commonly 5280 feet (1760 yards, or about 1609.3 metres). This mile is sometimes called the statute mile or land mile to distinguish it from the nautical mile (1852 metres, about 6076.1 feet). There have also been various historical land miles of lengths other than 5280 feet.

The exact value of a land mile varied slightly among English-speaking countries until an international agreement in 1959 established the mile as 1760 yards of exactly 0.9144 metres, giving a value of exactly 1609.344 metres. In the United States, mile can also refer to the U.S. survey mile of 5280 U.S. survey feet, which is about 3.2 mm (⅛ inch) longer than the international mile. In the US, statute mile formally refers to the U.S. survey mile rather than the international mile, but for most purposes, the difference is insignificant.

• I mention the agreement of 1959 as a way of (hopefully) introducing the idea of the “international mile” without formally claiming it’s a synonym; at the same time, I’ve tried to trim as many words as possible.
• We don’t qualify “⅛ inch” any further under Statute mile, so I don’t see why we need to qualify it here, either.
• I don’t especially like the second paragraph, but it was the least awkward way of saying this that I could think of.
• I don’t like beginning the last sentence with “In the US” just after one beginning “In the United States”, but with the last sentence as a clause of the previous sentence, it didn’t seem clear that the statement was limited to the US.

I really wonder if we need all of this in the lead, but I don’t think there’s a reasonable solution between this and the simple version. See what you think. JeffConrad (talk) 09:38, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Jeff, the passage reads well. In fact, apart from the last sentence, I would accept it immediately. However, the last sentence states In the US, statute mile formally refers to the U.S. survey mile rather than the international mile. However:

• The Free Dictionary says statute mile - a unit of length equal to 1,760 yards or 5,280 feet; exactly 1609.344 meters. [13]
• WordWeb Online defines statute mile as statute mile sta-choot mI(-u)l A unit of length equal to 1,760 yards or 5,280 feet; exactly 1609.344 meters- mile, stat mi, land mile, international mile, mi [[14]
• An American converter gives a value of 1.6093439999999999 for a conversion from kilometres to statute miles [15]
• unitconversion.org has different conversions for mile (statute) and mile (US survey). [16]

The fact that four authorities define the term "statute mile" in line with the international mile means that it is not safe to define it differently in the article. Let's just go with your suggestion minus the final sentence.

A mile is a unit of length, most commonly 5280 feet (1760 yards, or about 1609.3 metres). This mile is sometimes called the statute mile or land mile to distinguish it from the nautical mile (1852 metres, about 6076.1 feet). There have also been various historical land miles of lengths other than 5280 feet.

The exact value of a land mile varied slightly among English-speaking countries until an international agreement in 1959 established the mile as 1760 yards of exactly 0.9144 metres, giving a value of exactly 1609.344 metres. In the United States, mile can also refer to the U.S. survey mile of 5280 U.S. survey feet, which is about 3.2 mm (⅛ inch) longer than the international mile.

Michael Glass (talk) 11:44, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Michael, the sites you mention are most assuredly not authorities per WP:RS. Only the Free Online Dictionary gives a source, the American Heritage Dictionary, which defines mile as “A unit of length equal to 5,280 feet or 1,760 yards (1,609 meters), used in the United States and other English-speaking countries. Also called land mile, statute mile”, as I’ve previously mentioned three times. Note that mile in the definition from the Collins English Dictionary also points to the AHD. NIST speak with the authority of the United States government, so when they give a definition for a “statute mile”, that is the definition in the US. Their definition would prevail even if the OED, AHD, Webster’s whatever gave conflicting definitions (which they don’t). So we would err if we were to ignore the NIST definition. Recall that the contradiction between the definition given here and the one from NIST (which was cited as a source) is what initiated this discussion. A quick glance shows that this discussion, which covers three sentences, has been running for 2½ months, and is over twice the length of the article. I think it’s time to wrap it up; there are other issues in the article to be addressed. If there’s no objection, I’ll go with what I last proposed. JeffConrad (talk) 22:08, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Jeff, even though the NIST definition might be the definition in the US, the OED's definition (whatever it is) would prevail in the UK. It should be remembered that the US survey foot has never had a legal standing in the UK - moreover it owes its existence to the difference between the US and the UK definitions of the yard in the nineteenth century.

In my view we should be improving the article first and then writing the lede - after all, the lede is a summary of the article and the various points that are being brought up should appear in the article. Martinvl (talk) 05:42, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Martin, I don’t understand your point. What I propose to say is “In the United States, mile can also refer to the U.S. survey mile of 5280 U.S. survey feet . . . In the US, statute mile formally refers to the U.S. survey mile”. How does this affect anything in the UK? And leaving the wording as it stands ignores the US definition even for the US; certainly, you cannot suggest this is reasonable. The SOED, 6th ed, s.v. mile, gives

1 Orig., the Roman unit of distance of 1,000 paces, equal to approx. 1,618 yards; also, a unit of distance (varying widely according to period and locality) derived from this. Now (also statute mile), a standard unit of length and distance equal to 1,760 yards (approx. 1.609 kilometres).

There is absolutely no conflict with what I′ve proposed. The OED, 2nd ed., s.v. mile 1a gives, in relevant part, “The legal mile in Britain and the U.S. is now 1760 yards”, with no other numerical value; again, there is no conflict. The OED and SOED don’t specifically define statute mile, so yet again there is no conflict. But it would not matter even if there were because neither Parliament nor the OED can define the mile outside the UK, as this article implicitly does. Recall that I suggested not even mentioning the U.S. survey mile in the lead, but this met with objection. Accordingly, I have tried to come up with wording that is accurate and succinct, and does not impose the UK definition on the US and vice versa. I think what I suggested does this (having gone through the exercise, the offer to omit is withdrawn).

I agree that other areas of the article should be improved. But that is no reason to avoid improving the lead in the interim—if it turns out that changes in the article call for changes in the lead, we can make them when appropriate. We have discussed this to death for the last 2½ months, and we keep rehashing the same issues again and again, with a distinct air of “Dave’s not here”. What exactly is the problem? Absent good reason to do otherwise, I’m going to make the changes I proposed—I am tired of the endless and needless stalling. Again, if you have a valid objection, by all means say what it is. But if not, let’s not waste any more time on this. JeffConrad (talk) 07:37, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

As far as I can see, the NIST does not define the statute mile. It deals with survey miles and international miles. See[17] and [18]. I would like to see some documentary evidence that the survey mile is also known as the statute mile. Michael Glass (talk) 09:15, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Michael, it′s at B.6 in the first document you link:

8 fur = 1 U.S. survey mile (also called “statute mile”) = 1 mi = 5280 ft

at B.6 The italics indicate units based on the U.S. survey foot, as noted in the paragraph that precedes it; fur should also be in italics, which Barry Taylor tells me will be fixed in the next edition. Does this answer your question? If so, it would seem that we agree on the wording, and I would like to make the change. JeffConrad (talk) 11:04, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

May I refer you to a recent real life situation where "statute miles" and "nautical miles" are used in the same document - see [here]. Maybe the Americans do things differently. If so, the article should show this up. Meanwhile, leave the lede alone, get on with the body of the article and once that is done, redo the lede if neccessary. Martinvl (talk) 09:49, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

May I refer you to another real-life situation: NIST Special Publication 811, cited in my reply to Michael above. How much more indication do you need? This has been mentioned repeatedly during this discussion, and SP 811 is cited in the first note, so I am astonished at “Maybe the Americans do things differently”. Because they have been delegated statutory authority for weights and measures in the US, NIST represent a high-quality citable source, for which we really don’t have an equivalent for supporting “statute mile” = 1609.344 m.

I also fail to see the issue in the document to which you linked; clearly, they are using statute mile and nautical mile to distinguish between the land mile and nautical mile, which is exactly how I’ve proposed the second sentence to read. What is the problem? You yourself have indicated that hardly anyone cares about the 2 ppm difference between the “international mile” and the U.S. survey mile, so “statute mile” as given to the precision in the six different dictionaries I’ve mentioned in this discussion works fine in the UK or the US.

Again, cleaning up the lead will in no way negatively impact improving the rest of the document; the change can be made in less than a minute. There is absolutely no reason to delay fixing the error here until the far more arduous task of changing the rest of the article is done. If there is something I am missing, can you tell me that it is?

Yet again, absent a reasonable objection from Michael or some good reason from you to do otherwise, I will make the change that I have proposed, and if it is reverted, I shall take the issue directly to AN/I without further discussion. Believe me, I’m not looking for a confrontation and AN/I is the last way I want to handle this, but I am tired of repeatedly addressing the same objections that seem to serve no purpose other than obstruction, for reasons I simply cannot fathom. Though I think we agree that the error is minor, the lead is nonetheless wrong as it currently reads, and the wording I propose will correct the problem; it can always be improved later if necessary, so let’s not reject the good for the perfect.

Again, if you have some valid objection to what I have proposed, I’m all for hearing it. But Otherwise, it’s time to wrap this up and move on. I really, really, don’t want to handle this on the noticeboard, but be assured that “I shall not hesitate to do so”. Please, let′s work on making the article better rather than forcing a showdown. JeffConrad (talk) 11:04, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Jeff, as far as I am concerned you have proved your point about the NIST. Now that I have seen the evidence - which I overlooked - I withdraw my objection to your wording. Michael Glass (talk) 12:13, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Michael, thanks for the comment. Though we’ve had a lengthy discussion, you’ve had many helpful suggestions. Most of our discussion has focused on small details, but details appear to be at the essence of an accessible and succinct, yet accurate, summary for the lead.

One more person to convince . . . toward that end: “statute mile” is mentioned only once in the California Codes, in §55 of the California Fish and Game Code, which reads

“Mile” means either a statute mile (5,280 feet) or a nautical mile (6,077 feet) depending on the application. Statute miles shall be the unit of measurement for all land masses, rivers, streams, creeks, and inland bodies of water. Nautical miles shall be the unit of measurement for all marine waters.

This is essentially what I’ve been saying all along, and seems to be at the same point as the link to the Windermere Byelaws Consultation that Martinvl provided above—statute mile is used mainly to distinguish a land mile from a nautical mile. I think we would all agree that the game warden is probably unconcerned with the 2 ppm difference between the U.S. survey mile and the “international mile”, so that “statute mile” applies equally well to either.

I again point to the first sentence of the second paragraph under Statute mile: “The exact conversion of the mile to SI units depends on which definition of the yard is used”, which is what I’m trying to say and explain succinctly in what I’ve proposed for the lead.

I’d like to wrap this up and still have us all be friends, but more than anything, I’d like to wrap it up—think what might have been possible had the effort expended here been applied to other parts of the article. Again, if there is a valid objection, I’m all for hearing it. But let’s not continue to argue for argument’s sake. JeffConrad (talk) 21:36, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Revised proposal

I noticed a few issues with what I had proposed:

• The first sentence read “most commonly 5280 feet”, but the second sentence equated “this mile” and the “statute mile”; clearly, “statute mile” never referred to a mile other than that of 5280 feet.
• The 1959 agreement standardized the yard rather than the mile.
• The mention of the U.S. survey mile seemed to invite the question, “Why does it exist?”
• If the location of the survey mile definition in NIST SP 811 wasn’t obvious to people here, it probably wasn’t obvious to others, either.
• With the proposed first paragraph, historical miles would have been mentioned twice.

Accordingly, I propose that the entire lead be revised to read

A mile is a unit of length, most commonly 5280 feet (1760 yards, or about 1609.3 metres). The mile of 5280 feet is sometimes called the statute mile or land mile to distinguish it from the nautical mile (1852 metres, about 6076.1 feet). There have also been many historical miles and similar units in other systems that may be translated as miles in English; they have varied in length between one and fifteen kilometres.

The exact value of a statute mile varied slightly among English-speaking countries until an international agreement in 1959 established the yard as exactly 0.9144 metres, giving a mile of exactly 1609.344 metres. In the United States, statute mile formally still refers to the US value of the mile before the 1959 agreement; that mile is now termed the U.S. survey mile. The survey mile is about 3.2 mm (⅛ inch) longer than the international mile, but for most purposes, the difference is insignificant, and statute mile can be used for either the survey mile or the international mile.

The use of the mile as a unit of measurement is now largely confined to the United States and the United Kingdom.

A few thoughts:

• The second paragraph is a bit tricky because varied is past tense but refers is present tense, so strictly, it seems to say that the value varied before 1959 but it still varies; hopefully, what is meant is clear from the context. If there is a problem, perhaps we could begin with “The exact value of a land mile”, though I don’t think this is really necessary.
• By referring the survey mile to the value of the US mile before the 1959 agreement, I think we can reasonably avoid mention of the U.S. survey foot, which I think you both wanted to do.
• I think mentioning historical miles in the first sentence is best because they relate to the other information, and the final paragraph is short and focused on one topic.

Incidentally, Section 2 of Appendix C of NIST Handbook 44 (the second source linked by Michael above) refers to the “U.S. statute mile”. I’ve avoided trying to introduce this as yet another because other NIST documents refer only to the “statute mile”.

See if this works. JeffConrad (talk) 10:21, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Jeff, just a thought, but I think the second paragraph would be clearer if it read:

The exact length of the mile varied slightly among English-speaking countries until an international agreement in 1959 established the yard as exactly 0.9144 metres. This gave a mile of exactly 1609.344 metres (often termed the International Mile in the United States). In the US, statute mile still formally refers to the US value of the mile before the 1959 agreement; that mile is now termed the U.S. survey mile. The survey mile is about 3.2 mm (⅛ inch) longer than the international mile, but for most purposes, the difference is insignificant, and statute mile can be used for either the survey mile or the international mile.

The reasons for my suggested changes are as follows:

• The first paragraph was about the mile; that should be the primary focus of the second paragraph, too.
• Length is plain English; value is more obscure. Let's lead with length; value can be used later in the paragraph.
• The former wording could be read as suggesting that the rest of the world uses the 1959 length while the US stuck to the former measure. As far as I understand, this is not so. The survey mile is used for surveying purposes whereas the International mile is used for other functions. In that case it would be better to define both the International mile and the survey mile.

I hope you find these suggestions useful. Michael Glass (talk) 01:27, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Good suggestions. As always :-), a few comments:

• Certainly no problem starting with length; I′d had the same question myself.
• I had thought the meaning of international mile was easily inferred from “international agreement”, but apparently that is not the case.
• Often greatly overstates the case, as perhaps even does sometimes—as I’ve mentioned, I’ve never seen it outside of NIST. I wonder about using either with termed, which seems to connote something permanent and fairly official. NIST formally define international mile in SP 811, so it’s probably not necessary to worry about frequency of use.
• Honestly, statute mile is pretty rare also, though it does appear in dictionaries (as well as sometimes in laws such as the California code section I linked). There was no mention of statute mile in the 1959 announcement in the Federal Register; the first mention I’ve found is the 1975 citation at the beginning of Definition of “statute mile”; my guess is that many land surveys based on the old definition mentioned “statute mile”, and surveyors wanted to avoid legal disputes or the need to redo all the surveys.
• I don’t know what you think about citations in the lead, but I’ve left the NIST citation in place—that challenges arose here suggests they might arise from others as well. If it’s thought necessary, I could include a citation of the AHD to support the use of land mile; the 3rd ed. is already listed as a reference (with no citation that I can find), but I looked at the 4th ed., so that’s all I could fairly cite.

So I suggest something like

The exact length of the mile varied slightly among English-speaking countries until an international agreement in 1959 established the yard as exactly 0.9144 metres, giving a mile of exactly 1609.344 metres. In technical usage in the US, the U.S. survey mile refers to the US value of the mile before the 1959 agreement, and international mile refers to the value after the agreement; statute mile formally refers to the U.S. survey mile. The survey mile is about 3.2 mm (⅛ inch) longer than the international mile, but for most purposes, the difference is insignificant, and statute mile can be used for either the survey mile or the international mile.

See if this is getting close. JeffConrad (talk) 04:09, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Jeff, thanks once again for your careful analysis of my suggestions. Because we are working together, I'm sure the final result will be better than either of us could have achieved alone.

1. I find the first sentence overlong; I would divide it.
2. I welcome the recommendation to find another word than often to describe the usage of the term international mile. However, when I came to revise it, I found the phrase problematical, so I removed it.
3. I personally believe that the term "statute mile" has problems:

• It has (slightly) different meanings on either side of the Atlantic.
• In the United States, as could be shown from the links I supplied and which is acknowledged in the draft, the term has been applied to the International mile rather than the US survey mile as the NIST prescribes.
• As a result, it is necessary to include a citation in the introduction just to show that we were following the NIST.
• As you have acknowledged, the use of the term "statute mile" is pretty rare.
• In the light of all this, I feel it's a bit of a stretch to call the term "technical usage". I believe that this description would be more accurately applied to the terms US survey mile and international mile.

Putting all this together, it would result in a version something like this.

The exact length of the mile varied slightly among English-speaking countries until an international agreement in 1959 established the yard as exactly 0.9144 metres. This gave a mile of exactly 1609.344 metres. The US adopted this measure for many purposes but kept the previous measures for land surveying. This mile is now termed the U.S. survey mile or occasionally, the statute mile. The survey mile is about 3.2 mm (⅛ inch) longer than the international mile, but for most purposes, the difference is insignificant, and statute mile can be used for either the survey mile or the international mile.

What do you think? You will notice I have used the phrases "the previous measures" and "This mile" rather than the older mile. Also, this version is slightly shorter (it assumes that international mile will be clear from the context.) Michael Glass (talk) 08:42, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

As usual, a few comments:

• My first sentence may be a bit long, but I find the split version pretty choppy—and the greater of evils in any event.
• If the meaning of international mile is evident, let’s not bother defining it—we can cover it in Statute mile.
• “Statute mile” may have slightly different meanings on different sides of the pond (recall that we don’t really have a citation that “directly supports” statute mile = 1609.344 metres for the UK). But even if we had such a source to match NIST, the difference between the two definitions would matter only to a small number of people, as I think you, Martinvl, and I have agreed. Recall that the entire reason for initiating this discussion was to challenge the assertion that statute mile = 1609.344 metres, which I trust I have shown is unfounded. Recall that the first paragraph, at least to the layman’s accuracy, essentially equates mile as it’s most commonly used to statute mile and land mile. You′ve thought we should mention the U.S. survey mile in the lead, and because doing so indicates that there are two slightly different miles, we need to indicate which one is a “statute mile”; in the UK, I’m not convinced there’s a practical difference—you folks are close to done with the silly unit anyway. For deciding what to put on highway signs, the distinction really doesn’t matter. In most cases, it doesn’t matter in the US, either, but the table at the top of the article still gives 1609.344 m, which is clearly dead wrong as a blanket statement.
• “Technical usage” was intended to apply mainly to the first clause, but strictly, the application of “statute mile” to the survey mile applies only in technical usage as well—to Joe Sikspak, it’s just the mile. But if we partially go back to
• As for measure, it works far better in BrE than in Am—though we have a Bureau of Weights and Measures in most states as well as in Washington, Joe would usually think of it as covering 12 ounces, a half quart, or a fifth (he’s yet to get his head around the concept of a 750).

So I kinda go back to the original proposal, revised to reflect some of your ideas; I′ve included the entire proposed lead to provide context:

A mile is a unit of length, most commonly 5280 feet (1760 yards, or about 1609.3 metres). The mile of 5280 feet is sometimes called the statute mile or land mile to distinguish it from the nautical mile (1852 metres, about 6076.1 feet). There have also been many historical miles and similar units in other systems that may be translated as miles in English; they have varied in length between one and fifteen kilometres.

The exact length of a statute mile varied slightly among English-speaking countries until an international agreement in 1959 established the yard as exactly 0.9144 metres, giving a mile of exactly 1609.344 metres. In the United States, statute mile formally still refers to the length of the US mile before the 1959 agreement; that mile is now termed the U.S. survey mile. The survey mile is about 3.2 mm (⅛ inch) longer than the international mile, but for most purposes, the difference is insignificant, and statute mile can be used for either the survey mile or the international mile.

The use of the mile as a unit of measurement is now largely confined to the United States and the United Kingdom.

There’s a slight illogic in “statute mile formally still refers to the length of the US mile before the 1959 agreement” because it equates a mile with its length; perhaps we could say “statute mile formally still refers to the US mile before the 1959 agreement” if this is an issue, but I see some ambiguity there as well.

Your witness . . . JeffConrad (talk) 10:32, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Jeff, I'll concede the point about the length of the first sentence of the second paragraph and I agree we have to do something about that table. It's worth noting that we seem to have agreement about every word in the whole introduction except for part of the second paragraph. The remaining point of disagreement is about wording that you concede has problems. Here is your wording:

In the United States, statute mile formally still refers to the length of the US mile before the 1959 agreement; that mile is now termed the U.S. survey mile.

Here is my suggestion, polished and revised to remove the word measure:

The United States adopted it for many purposes but kept the pre 1959 mile for land surveying. This mile is now termed the U.S. survey mile or occasionally, the statute mile.

Now my wording might need polishing, but I think it does sidestep a problem with your wording. What do you think? Michael Glass (talk) 14:36, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Probably an improvement on my wording. A few issues, though:

• The US adopted the international mile for nearly all purposes, retaining the pre-1959 mile only for data expressed in feet and derived from geodetic surveys.
• Again, termed has the connotation of something fairly official and permanent, so occasionally isn’t really appropriate. And for practical purposes, the “terming” is official—see NIST Handbook 44 (2011).

So I suggest the following to address your concerns and mine:

The exact length of a statute mile varied slightly among English-speaking countries until an international agreement in 1959 established the yard as exactly 0.9144 metres, giving a mile of exactly 1609.344 metres. The United States adopted the international mile for most purposes, but retained the pre-1959 mile for some land-survey data, terming it the U.S. survey mile. In the US, statute mile formally refers to the survey mile, which is about 3.2 mm (⅛ inch) longer than the international mile; however, for most purposes, the difference is insignificant, and statute mile can be used for either the survey mile or the international mile.

See if this is finally getting close. JeffConrad (talk) 23:41, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Great work, Jeff. We're almost there! The only improvements I can suggest are changing the expression statute mile at the beginning of the paragraph to the plain English mile. A second change is to use this international mile in place of the international mile to make it unambiguously clear that we are talking about the mile that emerged from the 1959 agreement.

Here is the wording of that paragraph with the two suggested changes.

The exact length of the mile varied slightly among English-speaking countries until an international agreement in 1959 established the yard as exactly 0.9144 metres, giving a mile of exactly 1609.344 metres. The United States adopted this international mile for most purposes, but retained the pre-1959 mile for some land-survey data, terming it the U.S. survey mile. In the US, statute mile formally refers to the survey mile, which is about 3.2 mm (⅛ inch) longer than the international mile; however, for most purposes, the difference is insignificant, and statute mile can be used for either the survey mile or the international mile.

• It leads with the plain English word term mile.
• This communicates better than statute mile which as you have admitted is "pretty rare."
• It is more consistent with the wording that follows, where reference is made to (in order) a mile, international mile, pre-1959 mile, survey mile and then statute mile.
• Therefore the plain English mile communicates better and is more consistent in context, where it leads a paragraph that explains the more technical and precise terms, international mile and US survey mile as well as statute mile in the US context.
• International mile and US survey mile have the advantage of precision but they are more technical and obscure than the plain English mile.
• "Statute mile suggests authority, but in actual usage in the US, it lacks the precision of international mile and US survey mile. In Britain it would be assumed to be synonymous with the 1959 mile, and as the article uses British spelling conventions, this is potentially misleading.
• Because statute mile has varying meanings, I feel it should be used with care so that the intended meaning is clear.
• That is what is done in the rest of the paragraph, thanks to all your care, so the explanation about the meaning of the term statute mile is retained.

I think that just about sums it up. What do you think? Michael Glass (talk) 03:17, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree on this, and agree the unqualified mile technically and usually means a land mile. But we indicate (correctly, I think) in the first paragraph that statute mile/land mile are used to distinguish between the land mile and nautical mile. Doesn’t the unqualified mile in the beginning of the next paragraph lead to some ambiguity? Perhaps we could use land mile if that would be understood (seems kinda obvious to me, especially since we just explained what it means . . .). JeffConrad (talk) 05:12, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Just to provide context for assessing the need for a qualifier in the first sentence of the second paragraph:

A mile is a unit of length, most commonly 5280 feet (1760 yards, or about 1609.3 metres). The mile of 5280 feet is sometimes called the statute mile or land mile to distinguish it from the nautical mile (1852 metres, about 6076.1 feet). There have also been many historical miles and similar units in other systems that may be translated as miles in English; they have varied in length between one and fifteen kilometres.

The exact length of the [land?] mile varied slightly among English-speaking countries until an international agreement in 1959 established the yard as exactly 0.9144 metres, giving a mile of exactly 1609.344 metres. The United States adopted this international mile for most purposes, but retained the pre-1959 mile for some land-survey data, terming it the U.S. survey mile. In the US, statute mile formally refers to the survey mile, which is about 3.2 mm (⅛ inch) longer than the international mile; however, for most purposes, the difference is insignificant, and statute mile can be used for either the survey mile or the international mile.

The use of the mile as a unit of measurement is now largely confined to the United States and the United Kingdom.

Perhaps it’s clear from the first two sentences that an unqualified mile is a land mile; if so, we could go without a qualifier, and add land if someone complains about ambiguity. JeffConrad (talk) 08:30, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Jeff, thanks for all your work. I have absolutely no problem with the qualifier land mile in the text at that point. You are quite right that there is some possibility of ambiguity, so it does no harm to add this word. As far as I am concerned, the wording is now as good as we can make it. I have only one other suggestion, and that is to remove the linking from the words statute mile in the first paragraph. The reason for this is that the link is circular, and simply redirects the readers to the very article that they are reading!

I feel it's been a privilege to work with you in getting the beginning of the article right. Michael Glass (talk) 08:51, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Same here. What a project! A topic that ostensibly was simple proved far from it. It’s easy to cover stuff like this given several paragraphs to do so; with three sentences, it’s a bit more of a challenge. Hopefully, readers will find what we’ve come up with informative.

I’ve made the change, including removal of the WL. JeffConrad (talk) 17:36, 28 July 2011 (UTC)