How do you pronounce "centimeter" ???

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Not a big deal but something that bothers me. I run into a lot of nurses who pronounce the word centimeter as sontimeter.

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I say "cent", but I've also heard "sont". Me, I don't care as long as I know what they meant.....tomAto, tomAHto!

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

cent-i-meter

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Cent ih meter. Son eh meter is silly unless you're French.

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Specializes in Intensive Care.

That's funny. I say "cent." When I first became a nurse, a LOT of people said "sont." It took me a couple of times to get what they were talking about, and it bugs me still today. I thought it was a regional thing. :-)

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Specializes in Med/Surg.

I also pronounce it "cent." It annoys me slightly when I hear it pronounced as "sont"..it just sounds a bit pretentious to me.

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Specializes in CDI Supervisor; Formerly NICU.

See Emms.

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Specializes in ICU.

I never heard the "sont" pronunciation until I was in nsg school. We had to ask our professor what she was talking about. It still annoys the he!1 out of me. Is it just a nursing thing??

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Specializes in community small-town med/icu unit.

Depends who I'm talking to ;)

If I'm talking to English staff it's cent-ti-meter, if it's the French staff it's 'son'timetre

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Specializes in Rehab, critical care.

lol, proper pronunciation is definitely cent as in "sent," but it's a regional thing as someone mentioned. When I first heard it that way, it took me a second to know what they were talking about. I'm like, okay, sont...sonar, where are the dolphins? lol

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Specializes in Med/Surg.

cen-ti-me-ter  [sen-tuh-mee-ter] - noun one 100th of a meter, equivalent to 0.3937 inch. Abbreviation: cm, cm.

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Specializes in Med/Surg.

so-nom-e-ter   [suh-nom-i-ter]- an instrument used to measure the sensitivity of hearing"

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