This is definately an age dependent term:
Any Canadian who started school after 1975 calls a long thin piece of wood or metal 
calibrated in linear measurement units "metre sticks" and not "yard sticks"... even if 
they have a tendency to use feet and inches in conversation. We have our teachers 
using consistent terminology to thank for that.

greg


>>> "Stephen C. Gallagher" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 2001-03-15 20:21:02 >>>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Wade VMS Systems" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: March 15, 2001 09:17
Subject: [USMA:11630] Metric Yardsticks


> >That's about as bad as the sign I saw in a Canadian hardware store.
> >They were selling "metric yardsticks".
>
> There is nothing wrong with this.  Long after units like "yard" and "feet"
> are forgotten, you can still have things called "yardsticks" that measure
> distance, only they will be calibrated in meters, and nobody will realize
> why they were called this.

Or we could just start calling them metre sticks.

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