--- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, zundevil <no_reply_at_y...> wrote:
> 1. Indeed, "kilo" is a prefix that means "one-thousand", but I
> believe I saw somewhere that "kilogram" is actually its own unit.
> This may be selective/faked memory on my part, but I thought it said
> that kg is sort of detached from the "1000 grams" meaning, and has
> taken a life of its own. It still measures a mass of precisely 1000
> grams, but separating the "kilo" from "kilogram" doesn't hold (if
> the above possible hallucination is true).
Technically, the kilogram is *the* unit of measurement for mass. So,
if one wants to nitpick, the gram is a unit derived as one-thousandth
of a kilogram, and not vice versa.
As for the response of "1 kilogram," I'm not inclined to support it,
even though it's technically accurate. More to the point, however, I
think that the problem lies with the question. It falls under the
"ambiguity of answer" problem: too many possible answers to deal with
neatly.
--AEI