Re: Square metres etc. in English

Peter Twydell wrote:

Just a touch of pedantry: the British term for the old units is 'Imperial'.

(When did pedantry start requiring you to quote an entire message, not just the part you are commenting on?)

What I described was about English units, which is apparently the expression that the Chicago Manual of Style uses about British _and_ U.S. units collectively. I've often seen them referred to as "Anglo-Saxon", but I can see reasons for avoiding this word due to its wrong historical connotations.

In instances where superscription is not possible, ** could be used, e.g. 10.35 m**3

I would avoid that in any document written for a general audience. People cannot be expected to know such expressions, which are really computer jargon. Using full words ("cubic meters") is surely better, and if you really need to use some compact special notation (which needs to be explained to readers), "m^3" is probably better.

I would not expect to find many situations in translation where you cannot use even the superscript two and superscript three characters. You would surely need better tools in such situations.
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