I have just posted the following email to James J. Kilpatrick, with
information copies to the AP Wire ("feedback") and the editor of our
local newspaper.
Jim
Dear Mr. Kilpatrick,
The column of yours that was posted in today's Charleston Post and
Courier was right on the money. Writers (and here I would highlight
journalists) are an innumerate lot. Perhaps for that reason they tend
to be rather technophobic and ignorant of the sciences as well, but
that's not the issue I raise here.
One of the sad repercussions of this innumeracy is that journalists
seem to be significantly more antimetric than the average American. As
owners of the Daily Pulp(it) they have an unfair advantage in the war
of words in this skirmish in which our society is involved--the battle
to move towards using the universal meter, despite our federal
government's parochial foot-dragging in metricating our country.
Even the staff writers at Associated Press routinely fail to heed the
advice given in the AP Stylebook on using metric units in their
articles. Thus our daily, weekly, and monthly journals tend to abrogate
their implied Jeffersonian contract to educate and inform the
citizenry. Their practices would leave Americans believing that the
metric system is a "European thing" or only for scientists, instead of
being the system of measurement used by 95 % of the world's people in
their everyday lives.
You might be interested in an online reference that our federal
government does provide for the media.
"Metric Style Guide for the Media" (NIST)
http://ts.nist.gov/ts/htdocs/200/202/metrsty3.htm
If you review this small online pamphlet, you will quickly see many
egregious errors in the feeble attempts that journalists do make from
time to time to use the SI, "the modern metric system". Perhaps this
will provide you with some inspiration for a future column. Should you
feel inclined to venture further into this topic, I immodestly
recommend my pages, indexed at
http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj/SIguidelines.htm
Some of those sail forth into non-English waters, by the way, which is
useful for those who travel outside the country.
As an aside, downtown Charleston has not yet slipped beneath the waves,
though we worry about that in hard rains. We miss having you here in
town. Fortunately, we are still provided with your excellent columns.
best regards,
Jim Frysinger
p.s.- I am eager to see yet another column on the phenomenon I call
"only the lonely", the misplacement of "only" in written and spoken
sentences. For example, here is a typical response by a journalist,
challenged for avoiding the use of metric units in a news article
regarding events in another country: "Americans only understand
non-metric units." (The journalist also suffers from ethnocentrism in
believing all Americans are as innumerate and as non-metric as
journalists are.)
--
James R. Frysinger University/College of Charleston
10 Captiva Row Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
Charleston, SC 29407 66 George Street
843.225.0805 Charleston, SC 29424
http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cert. Adv. Metrication Specialist 843.953.7644
-------------------------------------------------------
--
James R. Frysinger University/College of Charleston
10 Captiva Row Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
Charleston, SC 29407 66 George Street
843.225.0805 Charleston, SC 29424
http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cert. Adv. Metrication Specialist 843.953.7644
