Pat, Good point! Interestingly enough, we call 1600 meters a metric mile for track and field events, the same way that the French (and others) call 500 mL a pint. Ironically, we in the U.S. call 500 mL a "1/2 liter" as indicated on bottled water and such. Of course, the official quantity declaration is in correct SI usage (500 mL or .5 L). While horse racing may indeed be fairly easy to convert to metric (although I still don't think it is necessary or desirable,) football, with its status in the U.S. would be a much tougher nut to crack for the reasons mentioned in Stan Doore's post.
Phil -----Original Message----- From: Pat Naughtin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, September 08, 2003 4:16 PM To: Phil Chernack; U.S. Metric Association Subject: Re: [USMA:26902] RE: Metric football on 2003-09-08 23.14, Phil Chernack at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I think this topic is getting a little out of hand. I don't think there is > any real good reason to metricate football or even horse racing (which still > uses furlongs). Dear Phil, Furlongs are not used in Australia. Horse races here seem to be run in multiples of 200�metres. It is not unusual to hear something like, 'It passed the favorite at the six hundred'. Miles became 'sixteen hundreds', and even the very traditional 'two-mile' Melbourne Cup was re-rated to 3200�metres (pronounced 'thirty-two hundred'). Metrication of horse racing in Australia was regarded as a high priority by the Metric Conversion Board because of its high profile in the community. Two of the reasons why I believe that metrication was successful in Australian horse racing was that they only used one unit, the metre, and they avoided the use of any fractions, vulgar or decimal. For example the Melbourne Cup is a thirty-two hundred metre race; it is not a 3 kilometre and 200 metre race and it is not a 3.2 kilometre, or a 3�1/5 kilometre race. Cheers, Pat Naughtin LCAMS Geelong, Australia --
