John David Galt wrote: >They wouldn't have jailed that guy in Britain recently for >selling meat by the pound.
Unfortunately, there has been a lot of misinformation on this topic. You may wish to know that nobody was jailed in Britain for selling a pound of anything (it was bananas anyway, not meat). Nobody went to jail at all, although there were convictions. The convictions were for failing to sell in kilograms. 1. Metric ********* UK traders are obliged to be capable of responding to a customer request for goods in kilograms. If the customer wants to buy a kilogram of goods, then it must be correctly priced and accurately weighed on calibrated scales. 2. Imperial *********** UK traders have the option of pricing and weighing goods in pounds. If they wish to do this, then they must have dual pricing and dual scales. It is not permitted for the trader to price and weigh in imperial-only because of the possibility of error when converting to kilograms. In fact, one of the traders illustrated this point very well. He attempted an arithmetic conversion and sold a short measure. Thus it remains perfectly legal to sell goods by the pound in the UK and many shops and supermarkets still do. The traders were convicted because they refused to support metric custom. Now, one of the tricky issues is how do you transition a nation from imperial to metric. This is the same problem as it was with the UK decimalisation of the currency from 240 pennies in a pound to 100 'new pence' in a pound. At the beginning, everybody but visitors knows the old system. At the end, everybody including visitors knows the new system. Nobody would argue that running dual systems forever is as good as having a single system. All the problem are due to transition timetables and methods. In the transition, then you either have a big bang such as an 'M-day' or you have an extended period of dual systems. You can also have several little bang 'M-day's, for example US aviation had one in 1996 when the FAA made Celsius mandatory. If you want to have an extended period of dual working then you have a conflict of freedoms between retailers and customers. If you give retailers freedom of choice, then customers are forced to be truly bilingual. For example, determine which is cheaper: half a pound at 48p or 250 grams at 52p? If you give customers freedom of choice, then retailers must be forced to use dual labelling, weighing machines etc. In the case of the metric martyrs, the law in the UK was changed to make it illegal for retailers to refuse to support metric customers. It remains entirely legal to buy a pound of bananas in the UK. The metric martyrs got themselves into trouble because they refused to support metric custom. However, it is difficult to make a headline out of the more accurate statement 'trader is incapable of selling a kilo of bananas'. If I may put it like this: A = Imperial capability B = Metric capability 'A' is permitted: Therefore "A is an offence" and "they were convicted for A" are false statements. 'B' is compulsory: Therefore "not-B is an offence" and "they were convicted for not-B" are true statements. If you dig deeper into this subject it becomes quite complicated and metric quantities are sometimes illegal. For example UK law forbids the sale of a litre of beer and a kilo of jam. The government trading standards press release is at: http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/cgi-bin/newsitem.cgi?file=pres0154.tx t&area=pres >And it's a violation of human rights that they did. Although I have used a different definition of 'did', the issue is not yet fully established by the courts. The people concerned are going to the European Court in the next 5 years. See: http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/mpress134.html -- Terry Simpson Human Factors Consultant [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.connected-systems.com Phone: +44 7850 511794
