I am just reading this long ago message (I was in Ireland). I suspect some marketing reason exists for using improper use of symbols of metric units in ads. We know how traders in many cases try to corrupt the use of measuring units. One of these methods may be to use these erroneous abbreviations in advertisements. Why else do companies use gr for g, mtr for m, ltr for L, etc? The USA is in no way involved in this. Cosmetics labels in OZ.LIQ have nothing to do with labels saying Net Wt. 1000 gr (which in fact, literally means 1000 grains, although they mean to say grams!).
Some years ago Irish primary schoolbooks committed some serious errors. They taught the awful form of 1m67cm, 2kg670g etc and all this then had to be unlearned at secondary school level were books used the correct notations. Han ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Elwell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, 2002-06-26 16:43 Subject: [USMA:20653] Re: Comments on flawless documents > At 09:04 AM 24 June 2002 -0700, Ma Be wrote: > >Now, what happened here is perhaps the real crux of the question. Why is > >it that these "professionals" (media people) seem to *notably* "not fall in line" with other types of professionals, like scientists, for instance, > >when it comes to writing SI units? And I'm not talking about "literary stuff", Jim, since there simply cannot be any "literary" value in using 500ml instead of 500 ml, for instance... ;-) > > I think some of you non-USA people need to address this question. Your countries have been metric for (in some cases) decades, and yet your companies put out products with "improper" metric labeling, and your media frequently use metric improperly. > > If you have a generation or two of people who have grown up with metric, who have (presumably) been taught proper metric usage in school, then why is there so much improper use of the metric system in these countries? > > And don't try to blame this one on the USA: having colloquial-labeled products "invade" your country does not magically translate to causing improper metric usage. > > > Jim Elwell, CAMS > Electrical Engineer > Industrial manufacturing manager > Salt Lake City, Utah, USA > www.qsicorp.com > >
