Bill is right. If you enter Britain through the Chunnel, on an airplane or a ferry from the European mainland, you still enter another world where measurement is concerned. The presence of Imperial is very pronounced; the difference with mainland Europe is still large. Ireland is far more advanced and I hope that she will escape the fate of Canada by becoming as metric as mainland European nations are.
The presence of Imperial and USC in metric countries (aircraft navigation, computer equipment, socket wrench sets) is used as propaganda by the BWMA and other anti-metric organizations. BTW, the French Maporama website http://www.maporama.com, which a few years ago kow-towed so horribly to users of ifp by having all defaults in all languages in yards and miles with maps of European nations with scales in miles and cities in yards, remains on the good side now. Everything defaults to metric, the maps are metric scaled as well; those who insist on non-metric units have to personalize their choice. It is just as well that the BWMA did not find them when they still used yard and mile defaults. When I stumbled onto this site for the first time I almost went through the roof! Han ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Potts" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, 2004-03-02 1:16 Subject: [USMA:29050] Re: Allowing metric only labeling on USA consumer products - letter to Ralph Nader > Euric wrote: > >The US is the only country not completely metric. And despite not trying, the US is 40 % metric, due to a large amount of imports of metric products and those US companies that have to use metric because the market is metric. > > Not entirely true. > > Britain is not completely metric. In fact, SI is prohibited for posted distances and speeds on all roads, for draft beer and for milk delivered in bottles (something very rare these days). Even though all other goods must be priced and sold in SI units, FFU price signs for non-packaged food are allowed (as long as they're no bigger than the SI ones). Even Tony Blair disregarded SI units when he told everyone the mass of the latest Blair. > > Canada is not completely metric, even though it's officially metric. Because of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's virtual suspension of many of the regulations, things like produce and meat are regularly sold (or, at least priced) in FFU. > > Even, in fully metric countries, those selling computers and computer accessories are allowed to get away with specifying screen sizes in inches. > > Because of legacy driver sizes, otherwise metric tool sets (e.g., socket wrench sets) still come with drivers specified as 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2". (I have one I bought in D�sseldorf.) > > Now, if you were to say that the U.S. is the country that has made the least progress with respect to SI, that would certainly be correct. > > Bill Potts, CMS > Roseville, CA > http://metric1.org [SI Navigator] > > P.S. Note to Gavin: A nit, I know, but there's only one m in amend. (They took the other one out to use as the symbol for meter. <g>)
