"Thom Stewart" wrote in message
...
CWM,

This one we can blame on the English

No you can't! Gabriel Fahrenheit invented the scale and he was a Dutchman,
born in Poland. He was about the earliest to be able to measure temperature
accurately and set 0 degrees on his scale as being the lowest temperature he
could possibly achieve in his laboratory in those days. Since it was a long
time before anything better came along his scale became well established
despite its peculiarities.