Point well taken! File this under "rational" part of US metrication.
>
> From: "Gillmann, Ralph" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: 2003/06/05 Thu PM 03:22:28 EDT
> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: [USMA:25946] RE: [USMA:25939] Quotations, proverbs, sayings, and clichés
>
> I think it's best not to "update" old sayings and quotations. There is really no
> need to and people are sensitive about it. For example in the USA, we don't use
> "score" to mean 20 anymore but we wouldn't dream of changing Abraham Lincoln's "Four
> score and seven". We don't literally have "milestones" anymore but that doesn't
> prevent the figurative sense.
>
> New expressions reflecting SI will naturally arise when SI is in common use. I'd
> like to see a list of such expressions (translated into English) from SI countries.
>
> Ralph Gillmann
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 9:36 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [USMA:25939] Quotations, proverbs, sayings, and clichés
>
>
> Dear Joe,
>
> on 2003/06/02 10.49, Joseph B. Reid at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> In your posting, you quoted Paul Trusten (from USMA 25892) as saying:
>
> >> Invariably, discussions of
> >> metrication in the US deteriorate into the old jokes
> >> of metricating popular sayings as well as the standard of measurement (I
> hold
> >> my nose as I repeat one of them: "Give him 2.54 cm and he'll take 1.608
> m").
>
> Some time ago, I wrote a piece on this topic for the 'Australian Style', an
> editorial newsletter. The version I include here is updated from the
> original.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Pat Naughtin LCAMS
> Geelong, Australia
>
> Imperial clichés
>
> Nothing dates your speaker, your author or you as editor more than
> references to feet, inches, or miles. When the Prime Minister or the Leader
> of the Opposition suggests that an economic target was 'missed by a mile'.
> it has a similar effect to the sight of old cars in a movie. You might
> assume that the rest of the content is also completely out-of-date.
> Australia adopted the International System of Units (SI) as its preferred
> (and legal) measuring method by passing The Weights and Measures Act 1960,
> and it formally 'went metric' from 1970.
>
> In short Australia went metric thirty years ago. To put this into a personal
> perspective I ask, 'Where were you in 1970?'.
>
> As an editor, if you allow 'I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole' to go
> unchallenged, you are providing readers with evidence that your speaker's or
> writer's mindset is firmly embedded in the 1970s at best.
>
> Recently, after giving a speech on the metric system in Australia, the
> subject of old sayings was raised. I suggested that there were probably
> hundreds of them, that they had proved to be quite persistent, but I felt
> that they would die out eventually or that they would be replaced by new
> metric sayings.
>
> Subsequently, I consulted numerous references and searched the Internet for
> quotations, proverbs, sayings, and clichés. I was surprised that I could
> only find a small number that refer to measurement; there are probably less
> than twenty in common Australian use.
>
> I suspect the ones that remain have some poetic quality, such as rhyme,
> rhythm, or alliteration, or a strong visual image that contributes to their
> currency. Eventually I divided my small collection into groups and added my
> own (somewhat facetious and highly personal) thoughts on changing them to
> SI.
>
> Quotations
>
> A pound of flesh ... (Shakespeare)
> There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile ... (Nursery Rhyme)
> The lessons of Three Mile Island ... (Newspaper)
> A bushel and a peck ... (Song)
>
> It would be an extremely brave (or very foolish) person who would Bowdlerise
> Shakespeare to read 'A kilogram of flesh' or to rewrite the popular song as
> 'I love you a millilitre and a cubic metre'.
>
> Sayings and proverbs
>
> Give them an inch and they'll take an ell (yard, mile, etc.).
> Give them a gram and they'll take a tonne. Give them a millimetre and
> they'll take a kilometre.
>
> I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.
> I wouldn't touch it with a five metre pole. (Coincidentally five metres is
> very close to the length of the old English measuring pole.)
>
> Alice felt ten feet tall.
> Alice felt three metres tall.
>
> Six foot under.
> Two metres down.
>
> Within an inch (or two) of death (the finish, the goal etc.).
> Missed death by millimetres. The knife wound in her chest went close to her
> heart, but missed by millimetres. The return to the bowler's end missed by
> millimetres.
>
> Paint an inch thick.
> The paint looked as though it was put on ten (or 50, or 167) millimetres
> thick.
>
> A miss is as good as a mile.
> A millimetre miss is a kilometre miss.
>
> An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
> A gram of prevention is worth a tonne of cure.
>
> Clichés
>
> He won't budge an inch.
> He won't move a millimetre.
>
> Go the extra mile.
> Go an extra metre. Go the extra kilometre.
>
> Missed by miles.
> Missed by metres.
>
> Yardstick.
> A measure, a metre stick, or a metre measure.
>
> To reach a milestone.
> To reach a target. To reach a goal.
> Note: Milestones no longer physically exist as they have been replaced by
> kilometre markers. In some rural areas these have become known as 'klick
> sticks'.
>
> A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
> A journey of a thousand kilometres begins with a single millimetre.
>
> Do the hard yards.
> Do the sweeter metre.
>
> In practical terms you can, as an editor, copy the practice of many film
> producers who don't use any cars in their films at all unless the car's
> name is 'Genevieve', or it has machine guns behind its headlights. However
> avoiding any reference to measurement at all is clearly an editorial copout.
>
> Alternatively editors can help protect their speakers and writers from
> looking foolishly old-fashioned by being aware of the correct use of SI
> units*. It's very hard to believe that someone is modern and forward
> thinking in (say) economics, when their measurement mindset so clearly rests
> more than thirty years ago, in the seventies, and they are still 'missing by
> a mile'.
>
>
> Pat Naughtin
>
> * See AGPS Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers, 2002, 6th Edition
> Ch. 11
>
>
Paul Trusten, R.Ph.
3609 Caldera Blvd, Apt. 122
Midland TX 79707-2872 USA
432-694-6208
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
There are two cardinal sins, from which all the others spring: impatience and laziness.
---Franz Kafka
