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English, imperial, USC are all apart of FFU, but not the
other way around. FFU is just a collective name for ALL non-SI
units. Calling something "imperial" excludes USC, old French, German,
Chinese units, etc.
Euric
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, 2004-07-16 12:03
Subject: [USMA:30435] Re: FFU vs SI
RE
On 2004 Jul 16 , at 11:35 AM, Paul Trusten wrote:
Just
thought I'd write that I like your "Ye Olde English Units" phrase.
Thanks. I've
used it a lot myself and have tried to "promote" it a little bit, but the
phrase has not attracted much support.
I like it because (even though
not totally accurate, as some have pointed out), the phrase "Ye Olde English
units" is reasonable clear to most Americans (who would probably just call
them "English units") yet at the same time carries just a little of a
deprecatory tone by making it sound somewhat old fashioned.
(I guess
another term would be "the old fashioned English units".)
If one
abbreviated "Ye Olde English Units" to "YOEU", I think it would lose it's
recognizableness to the average person. Similarly, I think the current fad of
calling them "FFU" is even more lost on the American public because they have
no idea what "FFU" stands for, not would they understand it much better if you
told them it meant "Fred Flintstone units". So when the term "FFU" is used, it
IS NOT recognized or understood, except by the few of us specialists who know
that it means the non-metric, non-SI units formerly used by the English and
inherited in modified form by the Americans. I think "Ye Olde English units"
IS so recognized by most Americans (at least).
Anyway, someday maybe
some single way of describing the old units will become universally accepted.
Let's hope that the reference that wins out will be "the units we used to
use".
Regards,
Bill Hooper
Fernandina Beach, Florida,
USA
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Go Metric, America
!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PS Instead of "Ye Old English units", I often
refer to the entire set as "Ye Olde Englsih mixture". I used to call it "Ye
Olde English System" until someone pointed out that it is not much of a
"system" but more of a hodge-podge mixture of originally unrelated units.
Now THERE is a neat name for it: "Ye Olde English Hodge Podge". :-)
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