OK, so i'm getting old and grumpy (whereas I in the past only were grumpy)

Those of you that time and time again refer to ºC as "degrees centigrade", do you know what you actually are saying??

What does the prefix actually mean? CENTI, as in CENTImetre, CENTIlitre or even the american currency's CENT?
And where does it actually come from?

Cent as in centurion gives a clue.
OK, so centi originates from
Latin's
centēsimus which literary translates in to "a hundredth".

So a Cent, as in currency, is 1/100 of a $, a centilitre 1/100 of a litre and a centimetre 1/100 of a metre...

So, what do you actually mean when you are telling me that a given temperature is so many degrees CENTIgrade? Say 90 degrees centigrade, do you really mean to tell me that it is within a degree C of freezing water (0.9ºC) ? Or did you mean to tell me that the temperature is ten degrees C from boiling water (90ºC) ???

But what does the C actually stand for and where does it originate from?

Just like the F in ºF originates from dear old Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, the esteemed physicist that back in 1724 who, after inspiration from Ole Rømer's earlier work, came up with a temperature scale based on a brine solution, an ice/water mixture and human body temperature the C in ºC actually refers to the scientist that "invented" the C temperature scale.

As body temperatures (and to a lesser extent brine solution's freezing points) varies, the renowned astronomer Anders Celsius decided that a scale based on only two points that also didn't vary much would be better than the ºF scale and therefore came up with his system based on the temperature when water freezes and the temperature of when water at sea level boils.
His original scale that had boiling water as 0ºC and freezing water as 100ºC, this was later "reversed" by another famous scientist, a botanist by the name of Carl Linnaeus (nowadays better known as Carl von Linne') which is how we now are more familiar with this temperature scale.

So ºC is degrees CELSIUS, 100ºC being the temperature of boiling water and 0ºC is the temperature of freezing water.
(and yes, I do know that the definitions has changed slightly after the developments of modern, more accurate, thermometers but let's KISS)

And lastly, don't be surprised if I assume you know what you are talking about when you tell me something is 99 degrees CENTIgrade and my reply is something along the lines of "fu** that's cold" (99 centigrade = 0.99ºC = within a degree Celsius of freezing water)


[ rant mode OFF ]