Be Square, But Don’t be a Square
rogersgeorge on February 10th, 2021
Meter is a unit of linear measure. If you want to use meter for area, you have to say “square meters” (or meter2 or m2). I tend to presume that scientific types know this. Now look at this sentence:
With a total collection area of 73,000 square meters (roughly 20 square acres), the NAIC stood as the largest single-aperture telescope on the planet from the date of its completion in 1963 to 2016 when China completed its FAST telescope.
https://www.engadget.com/what-were-losing-with-the-destruction-of-the-arecibo-telescope-173040347.html
Apparently the writer doesn’t know English units! Acre is already a unit of area; you wouldn’t say “square square meters,” would you?
PS—I put the hyphen in “single-aperture” because it’s a compound adjective; a topic for another post.
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