This is a follow-on question to "Term for construct in which adjective completely changes the meaning of its following noun?"
Is a "Chinese inch" an "inch" or something entirely different in which the only correct term is the compound "Chinese inch"?
The English language word "inch" has been intended to indicate a specific length with a significant degree of rigor, even though both the definition and determination of precision has been refined over time.
"Chinese inch" is a term for a unit that is similar in magnitude but is significantly different from an "inch" in actual length (apparently, 1 inch = 0.762 Chinese inches; authority of definition not determined; appears to have multiple, inconsistent definitions.)
So, is a "Chinese inch" a type of "inch"? It has a degree of transparency: both are units of length of similar magnitude. It could also be considered completely opaque: use of "inch" instead of "Chinese inch" could result in the embarrassing fit of clothing, the disastrous misdirection of a Mars-bound spacecraft, or tragic surgical results.
I can't determine if the compound "Chinese inch" is endocentric in that the sense of "unit of length" is preserved, or if it is exocentric since the length is indeed appreciably different in the same manner that a "kilometer" differs from a "mile."
Has there been a semantic change, so that "inch" is now a class of length units instead of a specific unit of length? To be specific, must one now use "English inch" or "American inch"?
Is it correct to advertise a tape measure using the "inch scale" if the scale is really in "Chinese inches"?
Best Answer
A Chinese inch is simply a unit of measurement. It has no relationship to the inch, it's just called that way in English. No, inches are not a class of unit, an inch is an inch but a Chinese inch is something different.
There are many examples of such qualified names for units of measurement. For instance, the American pint is 473 ml while the British pint is 568 ml. A billion means 109 in the US but 1012 in the UK. It's not that they're both members of the class millions, or pints, they simply mean different things in the different dialects.
The Chinese inch is the name adopted in the English language for the Chinese cùn, it is not one of many inches, it is the Chinese inch. So no, no semantic change has occurred, the Chinese inch is to an inch as a kilometer is to a mile.