I don't "grok" where Mr. Owen is coming from. As examples:
"The standard metric measuring tape was clearly not designed by anyone who
regularly worked with wood: a millimetre is smaller thant he tip of a
builder's pencil..."
My father was a carpenter and used #2 graphite pencils to mark wood. Their
sharpened tips are less than 1 mm wide.
"...and narrower than the blade of a saw..."
So what? 1/16" (the smallest division on most carpentry rulers) is narrower
than the blade of a saw too.
"..., and the closely packed, uniform gradations on the tape are hard to
make out at a glance except in bundles of five."
Again, so what? The longest line between the 10 mm divisions is the
midpoint. You instantly know when you're within 5 mm of the desired length
just by glancing at the ruler or tape measure, and then you only need to
count the remaining millimeters to arrive at the exact length. You can even
use ifp practice if desired ("Let's see, this wall is 2 meters, 37
centimeters, and 4 millimeters long"). -- Jason
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Trusten, R.Ph. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: U.S. Metric Association <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: Valerie Antoine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2003 11:03 AM
Subject: [USMA:26738] David Owen article and carpentry
> In his October 2002 New Yorker article on metric, David Owen comments:
>
> "...the same urge for consistency at any cost is often evident among
wholly
> rational metric advocates, who seldom acknowledge thta there could be
> situations in which coldly logical metric units work less well than
quirkier
> alternatives. An example is carpentry. The units in which American
building
> materials are idiosyncratic in the extreme---they include gauges, penny
> sizes, nominal dimensions, and a host of other anachronistic
> absurdities00but the over-all system works well, in part because it arose
> organically from human activity instead of being imposed from above by
> theoreticians. The standard metric measuring tape was clearly not designed
> by anyone who regularly worked with wood: a millimetre is smaller thant he
> tip of a builder's pencil and narrower than the blade of a saw, and the
> closely packed, uniform gradations on the tape are hard to make out at a
> glance except in bundles of five. In contrast, a customary American
> tape--with its easily distinguishable divisions of sixteenths, eighths,
> quarters, halves, inches, feet, and sixteen-inch framing intervals---is
> harmoniously suited to the way in which it is used. The American building
> industry will probably adopt the metric system someday, but American
> carpenters are not idiots or Luddites for continuing to use a system that
> works."
>
> I want to defer to subscribers to this list who are outside the United
> States, especially Canada and Australia. What was the reaction of
carpenters
> to metrication? To what extent do they agree or disagree with Mr. Owen?
>
> Paul Trusten, R.Ph.
> 3609 Caldera Boulevard Apartment 122
> Midland TX 79707-2872 USA
> 432-694-6208
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> "There are two cardinal sins, from which
> all the others spring: impatience and laziness."
>
> ---Franz Kafka
>
