As we've noted before, US authorities recently considered and rejected a
request to allow products to be labeled in centiliters. I believe their
argument was that it is a needless complexity that would confuse consumers.
PRO
As Gustaf notes, the centiliter would certainly be simpler for labels,
cooking, and nearly all household uses. Every small liquid food product (< 1
L) could be labeled in centiliters, without any decimal places or
non-significant zeroes. (The smallest bottles I could find in supermarkets
were 3 cL.) This would give sizes similar to, and just as easy to write and
say, as fluid ounces. A "sixty" (cL) bottle is just as easy as a "twenty"
(fl oz) bottle, and much easier than a "six hundred" (mL) bottle. In
cooking, cL would make it easy to use recipes as percentages, and most
quantities would be whole centiliters. (However, a "teaspoon" would be 0.5
cL and a "dash" about 0.1 cL).
CON
The centiliter is impractical in science and industry, where volumes are
measured more precisely. More importantly, it is not coherent and makes
volume calculations more difficult and prone to error, because a centiliter
isn't a cubic anything. (1 cL = 2.154 434 690 cm cubed!). A milliliter is
just a short name for cubic centimeter. When you multiply the dimensions of
an object in centimeters, you get a volume in milliliters, not centiliters.
MY PERSONAL OPINION
I wouldn't object to centiliters on household labels if they were used
consistently, and in recipes too. Consumers are not calculating volumes from
geometry formulas and the dimensions of the containers! However, I would
object to a mishmash of dL, mL, and cL because I do think it would confuse
consumers.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gustaf Sj�berg
>
> Subject: [USMA:9415] Fight the milliliter!
>
> I am sick and tired of seeing cans measured in milliliters. The
> ml-desease seems to have reached Sweden, influenced by import
> legislations to certain countries.
> Worst of all are the standard 33cL sodacans that are measured as "330
> mL".
> To those who support ml-usage, which probably are the same people as
> support mm-only usage, (Now what the hell is that???) I just want to
> say: Wake up!
>
> I think the USMA should take a stand for more user-friendly usage of the
> metric system. That would help you in your cause, I guarantee you.
> Unfortunately, many of the strong metric supporters in USA seem to be
> "SI-geeks" (sorry) at the same time and that is a burden to you. Don't
> let these people have to much influence.
>
> Death to SI. Long live the metric system.
>
>
