----- Original Message ----- From: "Han Maenen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, 2003-11-05 13:44 Subject: [USMA:27477] Re: Australian metrication
> The akker is not a unit of measurement anymore in mainland Europe, it is any > field used for growing crops. A large farmer may possess 120 ha of > 'akkerland'. > Its former use of a unit of measurement can be traced back in names of > villages and townlands, like Tienakker or Vieracker. > Before metrication it was used alongside the morgen and many other agrarian > units. It was roughly 0.5 ha. An akker can have any area now. > It is possible that the British acre has been used in Italy in the past, > that unit was called acro. I wonder how it could migrate that far. Maybe through Americans of Italian descent. Americans may have wanted to know how many acres the old family plots were and many Italians went along with the relatives request to use acres, especially if they were sending money back home. I would suspect that any use of old unit names in use in Italy are now eqaul to the American or metric version but not old Italian versions. It would be nice to know if this guess is true. > The unit of 500 g, called pond, Pfund livre etc. on the other hand is used > very much while shopping. > There is ifp in mainland Europe, alas, not much but yet... aircraft > navigation and computing. The BWMA knows about this all too well. Where exactly is imperial used in computing? Ever assemble a computer? If you did, you will see the fasteners are now metric. Older ones were imperial when the computers were made in the US. Once the manufacturing and assembly moved to Asia, the change to metric was abupt. If you are talking about monito screens, I would say that is one small aspect of a computer system and its use is as a trade name. One has to ask oneself, if the computer parts marketed in imperial are really imperial in design and manufacutre or metric? We know all to well that the 3.5 inch floppy is just a trade name and not the real dimensions of the disk. Just like the CDs and DVDs of today are 120 mm for the standard and 80 mm for the minis. You seem to agree with what the BWMA says without verifying first the truth. I do the opposite. I take everything they say first as a lie, until it is verified. Euric > > Han > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Pat Naughtin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Tuesday, 2003-11-04 22:49 > Subject: [USMA:27437] Australian metrication > > > on 2/11/03 5:34 AM, Mighty Chimp at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > <snip> > > Probably about 99.9 % in Europe, The only reference to old units that I hear > out of Europe is when they are referring to an historic unit � such as the > pond or the akker. However these old units now have metric definitions � > such as 500 grams or 4000 square metres. > > <snip> > > Cheers, > > Pat Naughtin LCAMS > Geelong, Australia > > Pat Naughtin is the editor of the free online newsletter, 'Metrication > matters'. You can subscribe by sending an email containing the words > subscribe Metrication matters to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -- > >
