I sent this to CNN the other day: "I just looked at the top story on the Europe edition of the website. The story was about the oil tanker that sank off the coast of Spain. The article says that the tanker had more than "19.6 million gallons" of oil. The article does not say whether these were U.S. gallons or English gallons, which differ significantly. The U.K. has pretty much switched to liters, so I think the article was referring to U.S. gallons. But this was the Europe edition. It would really clear things up if you just gave us the value in liters."
Yesterday and today I ran across two products from Procter & Gamble that caught my eye. My coworker had a small can of Pringles that was labeled something like: 1 3/4 OZ (50 g). I mentioned to him that P&G was one of the companies requesting that they be allowed to use metric-only labeling, and he said, "What a bunch of weirdos." I told him that it was pretty important for a global company. I think he has already formed his opinions. Oh, well. Today I found a 2 kg box of Tide at the grocery store. The metric on the label was in larger print than the ounces and pounds. This one is already on the list of products on the USMA website, but I didn't realize that there was such a difference in the font. I'd say that P&G is one of our best friends right now, since they will be leading much of the US market into metric labeling over the next few years. I attached a picture of the box. Carl
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