Hi all,
I am not aware of anyone in the world using cm for anything except for body
height.
Here in Australia, even the "mm" is assumed. If we want to by a sheet of
board for the wall for instance, we just say "twelve hundred by twenty-four
hundred please" and it's obvious what it is. It's hardly likely to be twelve
hundred cm wide, or even twelve hundred feet (god forbid). This is how
Americans will be talking soon (don't know when) and the sooner the better.
On another point, I notice everyone is putting a space between the numeral
and the unit. There is no space (as in the ifp system) so it's 1200mm or 1
200mm, not 1200 mm.
Regards
Mike Joy
Perth, Australia
**************Marcus, in USMA 21377, wrote a strong rebuttal of USMA 21374
in which I
presented the South African case for the use of the millimetre in
engineering and architectural drawings. Albert J. Mettler carried out an
internatioinal survey of metric practice in 1976. Albert, with a Swiss
background, farvored the centimetre but reported:
Countries not using the centimetre
engineers architects
Europe
Austria 1) X
Czechoslovakia X
Denmark 1) X X
Germany X
Greece X
Hungary X
Italy X
Luxemburg X X
Norway 1) X X
Poland X
Sweden 1) X
Switzerland X
Yugoslavia X
Africa
Botswana 2) X X
Cameroon x X
Mauritius 2) X X
South Africa 2) X X
Sudan X X
Zimbabwe 2) X X
Asia
Cyprus X
India X
Iraq X
Philippines X
Central America
Cuba X X
El Salvador X
1) standards institutes with rather puristic approach
2) recent converts to metric system with limited use of cm.
Joseph B.Reid
17 Glebe Road West
Toronto M5P 1C8 Tel. 416 486-6071
