Pat:
You appear to have attempted to use typographical quotes with disastrous
effect. Your opening quotes are the OE diphthong and the closing ones are a
1 in the prime (superscripted) position. The former has an ANSI value of
0140 and the latter is 0185.
Did you copy them from a web page?
Note that plain text email messages don't support typographical (i.e.,
specific opening and closing) quotes.
Bill Potts, CMS
San Jose, CA
http://metric1.org [SI Navigator]
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
> Behalf Of Pat Naughtin
> Sent: November 30, 2000 12:25
> To: U.S. Metric Association
> Subject: [USMA:9461] Re: Figures of speech remain!!
>
>
> on 31.10.2000 02.27, Howard Ressel at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> Dear Howard and All,
>
> I received a call a few moments ago to say that an article of mine in a
> national editorial journal 'Stylewise', had been taken up by the Brisbane
> Courier-Mail.
>
> Here is a draft of the article:
>
> Imperial clich�s by Pat Naughtin
>
> 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 assume that the rest of the content is also completely out-of-date.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.
> In short we went metric forty years ago. To put this into
> perspective I ask,
> �Where were you in 1960?�.
>
> As an editor, if you allow �I wouldn�t touch it with a ten foot
> pole� to go
> unchallenged, you are providing evidence that your speaker�s or writer�s
> mindset is in the late fifties � 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 be replaced by new metric sayings.
>
> Subsequently I consulted numerous references and searched the Internet for
> quotations, proverbs, sayings, and clich�s. I was surprised that I could
> only find a small number that refer to measurement; there are
> probably less
> than twenty in common 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.
> 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.
>
> Clich�s
>
> He won�t budge an inch.
> He won�t move a millimetre.
> Go the extra mile.
> Go the extra metre or 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.
> Milestones no longer physically exist as they have been replaced by
> kilometre markers. In some country areas these have become known as �klick
> sticks�.
> 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 a 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 is so
> clearly in
> the fifties, and they are still �missing by miles�.
>
> * See AGPS Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers, 1994,
> 5th Edition
> pp. 200-207
>
> Cheers,
>
> Pat Naughtin CAMS
> Geelong, Australia
>
> PS The reference is to an Australian Government Publishing Service (AGPS)
> Style manual that is widely used in Australia.
>
> PPS The return to the 'bowler's end refers to the game of cricket.
>
> > There was an interesting article in a magazine called "World Highways"
> > which is always 100% metric although its published in England. Even
> > articles about US Construction are SI.
> >
> > Headline: "Going the Extra Mile"
> >
> > it was about asphalt plants.
> >
> > Guess some figures of speech will remain with us for awhile yet.
> >
> > Howard Ressel, Metric Manager
> > New York State Department of Transportation, Region 4
> >
> >
>
>
