On Sunday 11 October 2009, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Sunday 11 October 2009 13:22:48 Albert Hopkins wrote:
> > On Sun, 2009-10-11 at 13:18 +0200, Justin wrote:
> > > I would say it is about just to many germans who are translating
> > > german
> > > words literally into english and as the the german word for package is
> > > "Paket" they come up with packet.
> >
> > Oh wow I did not know that.  See I knew it had to have some reasonable
> > explanation.  Thanks for the education.
>
> Well, at least now we know that English contains at least one word that is
> less ambiguous than the German equivalent.
>
> I would not have thought it could be done.

Packet in English is almost always correctly used to denote a format of 
network transmitted data (in the context of a conversation about IT and 
computers) which is routable:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_(information_technology)

The word packet also has other meanings like: a 'small amount of', a 'package 
of' and can be used in the context of money (one's salary or earnings), 
crisps, condoms, chewing-gums, etc.

Therefore the word packet can be ambiguous in English too, if the context in 
which it is mentioned is not known.
-- 
Regards,
Mick