Fastener Torque

Foot-Pound or Pound-Foot?

My torque wrenches and I are old enough to be calibrated in foot-pounds.  But that's no longer considered correct as the foot-pound is a measure of energy, whereas the pound-foot is the unit for torque.  (And even more correct is to state that it's pound-force, as opposed to pound-mass, or just pound.)

Although either word order gets the point across when talking about fasteners, you'll be subject to ridicule by pedantic scientists and engineers when you get it backward. 

Frankly, it's easier just to use newton-meters, and I'm moving in that direction.  But even the proper written form of that is subject to disagreement.  Some authorities put a space (or even more correctly a half-high dot) between the N and the m.