2002-09-01 To the best of my knowledge, there were only 3 mass units called "ton": short, long, and metric. The long ton and metric ton (tonne)were both very close in value, that it made it easier for the long ton to be abandoned. The use of the non-metric tons also depends on the scales used in the countries where those units are/were used. Since the long ton was primarily used in imperial countries and those countries now use metric scales, it also made it easier to switch from long to metric tons.
The US still uses the short ton, just called ton. It only uses the metric ton when dealing with exports and imports. This maybe because scales are still in pounds and it is easier to convert to tons of 2000 pounds then to tonnes of 2204.6 pounds. The real odd thing is that food and other commodities is measured in tonnes for the world and export markets, but still in bushels in the US. If you check the newspapers for pricing of corn, and other vegetables, you will see it is in dollars or cents per bushel. It is another of those cases where unit confusion is desired. John ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, 2002-08-31 23:40 Subject: [USMA:21995] tonnes > Has the non-metric ton disappeared? It has in the UK and it looks to me > like it also has in the US. > > US press and other reports refer to 'metric tons' (which would be > 'tonne' in the UK). > > Incidentally, www.washingtonpost.com and the news.bbc.co.uk are good > resources for current news which do not require registration. > > www.economist.com is a good resource for current issues. It does not > require registration for current articles but it does for archived > articles. > -- > Terry Simpson > Human Factors Consultant > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > www.connected-systems.com > Phone: +44 7850 511794 > > >
