on 2004-04-21 13.39, Mighty Chimp at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > To Pat: > > How well does the average Australian understand imperial units? If the > understand them well, how do they obtain this understanding?
Not at all; the average Australian does not understand the old imperial measures - and they probably never did. However, having said that, I believe that the average Australian feels comfortable with the words 'feet' and 'inches' because sports reporters still refer to these as human height measures, although this is gradually changing to centimetres (34 years so far). Australians are now becoming uncomfortable with the words, 'pounds' and 'ounces' as these words are rarely used - they have been replaced by kilograms and grams. The word, 'ounces' is probably more socially acceptable because it is used in the gold bullion pricing given on the daily news. > For example, the unit miles. If most people's comprehension of distance > measurements comes from driving one's car, how does one feel comfortable with > miles if devices are calibrated in these units? As for the word 'miles', it is still in use but the average Australian has little comprehension of what the word means; they have no idea that miles might mean air miles, data miles, frequent flyer miles, land miles, nautical miles, statute miles, survey miles, or radar miles. When an Australian refers to a distance with any sort of accuracy they use kilometres as their unit (but they might say 'kays' or less often 'kliks'). Since all of Australia's road signs were changed to metric only (on one day 1974 July 1), and odometers and speedometers became solely metric soon after that, Australians have developed 'rules of thumb' for distances in kilometres. For example, we know that 100 kilometres takes about an hour on a country road. I doubt that there are many Australians who think about miles at all when they are driving. In general, I suppose that I am making the point that to many (most) people units are simply words. They have no comprehension of the special nature of the words that are our units of measurement. Except that somehow they know that the government won't allow anyone to use a false weight or measure - and they can have a faith in the correctness of a kilogram or a kilometre. I hope this helps. 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] --
