On Mon, Jul 21, 2003 at 07:04:02PM -0400, Bruce Olson wrote: > John Chambers wrote: > > Phil Taylor writes: > > | John Chambers wrote: > > | >An interesting example: Sears is still one of the biggest seller of > > | >tools in the US, and they still sells tools labelled "Standard" and > > | >"Metric". You folks in the rest of the world may find yourself > > | >bewildered by this, but yes, they actually get away with it. > > | > > | Well, they can't exactly call the system of measurement based on the > > | inch, pound and gallon "Imperial" can they? Or maybe they can... > > > > Well, they could, and you do still see this in the US. But "English" > > is the more common term used by people who understand that such > > measures are no longer the standard anywhere. > > > > The legal situation in the US is more complex than you might imagine. > > There was a rather funny NRP article in the late 80's about the > > non-celebration of the 100th anniversary of the US "going metric". > > They explained what they meant by this, of course, and in the process > > explained a lot about the peculiar understanding of the term > > "standard" in this country. It seems that, since the late 1880s, the > > legal US definition of the inch is 2.54 cm. That's exact, because it > > actually is the definition of "inch". Similarly, "pound" is defined > > as so many grams, and so on with other measurements. > > > > > > I don't think that is quite right. My recollection is that > 39.37 inches was one meter until some time in the 1970s.
In Britain, certainly, the inch was redefined some time around then. In the mid-80s, my brothers wrote a DTP package, which involved digging up the exact details of units. They discovered, rather to their suprise (since we'd none of us ever heard any public announcement of the fact) that the UK inch had previously been been equal to 2.54<muttermuttermutter> cm, which was what we thought we knew, but had been redefined a few years previously, to be exactly equal to 2.54 cm. -- Richard Robinson "The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
