Metric units

[jancsika]

In yesterday's 7-by-many, "gramme" was marked as rare and yet "milligramme" was common. I think "gram" and "gramme" are both acceptable spellings, with the former being more common. But I would have thought that if "milligramme" was considered common then "gramme" would have been too.

[mkenuk]

The spelling may have been why so many missed it.
milligramme was the 'big word' but it was also the least-played common word in the game.
That doesn't happen very often.

[Alan W]

At one time milligramme was the preferred spelling in English, but according to the Google ngram viewer, milligram overtook it around 1890 in American English and around 1915 in British English.

Nowadays milligramme is used rarely - mainly it seems in British stories about drivers' blood alcohol readings, such as "Toxicology reports found Darren had 14 milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood - the legal limit being 80..." (ChronicleLive web site, 12 November)

I have no hesitation in saying that milligramme should be treated as rare from now on.

I suppose people would have been even more flabbergasted to learn that centigramme was classed as a common word. But as an 11-letter word, with 9 different letters, it's never appeared in a puzzle.