Terry, Thanks for the update. You haven't seen Prime Suspect for a while because this is the first new episode in six or seven years, which is why it was hyped so much here in the States.
What struck me particularly is that I heard not a single metric reference in the entire show -- all Imperial. The other thing I noticed was that in a scene where a number of police cars converged on a suspect's home to arrest him the sirens sounded like the ones used here in States (wailing) rather than the kind used on the Continent (two tones of alternating pitch). This, plus the total lack of metric, made me wonder if they had created a version for the U.S. audience (since I thought emergency vehicles in Britain use European style sirens). Ezra -----Original Message----- From: Terry Simpson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Apr 22, 2004 4:53 AM To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [USMA:29610] RE: Prime Suspect tweaked for U.S. audience? >Of Ezra Steinberg >I don't know who else might have scene the first part of Prime Suspect 6 with >Hellen Mirren (who plays a London detective superintendent) that aired last >Sunday night on PBS, but I was suprised (except when they referred to "miles", >alas!) to hear all of the measurements used by the actors given in Imperial units. > >Is Prime Suspect aired in Britain, too? Can anyone tell me if the all-Imperial usage >protrayed in the episode I saw accurately reflects day-to-day usage in the London >(or any other British) police department? (I sure as heck hope not!) Prime Suspect is shown in Britain. It is or was very popular. I have not seen it recently and can't comment on their usage. UK laws are in metric and metric is used in the courts. I am sure that metric would be used to refer to most non-human dimensions including some of those relating to roads. Look at the mix of metres, kg, mph and yards in: http://www.merseyside.police.uk/FAQ/m/m.html Note that in non-metric references, British convention is to use yards rather than feet for distances between about 5 yards and half a mile. I understand that US convention is to use feet for those distances. I imagine that few British people would have know what distance is meant by 600 feet, but most would score better when told about 200 yards or 200 metres. Most people in Britain talk about human height in feet and inches. I am sure that the police do too. There are some who know their height in metres but I would not expect to hear anybody use the value much in conversation. Certainly when the police give information to the public about people they are looking for, they do not use metric. As far as weight is concerned, I would be very surprised if any British person quoted their weight as 'x pounds' like Americans do. It is almost incomprehensible to most British people. The traditional way of describing weight in Britain is 'x and <fraction> stone' or 'x stone, y pounds'. It is not surprising to hear British people talk about their weight in kg, and even if they don't, they would not regard it as particularly unusual to see weight quoted in kg. All the weights in my gym are in kg. The human weighing machine has a simple switch to change the display from kg to pounds but as far as I know, everybody leaves it in kg. There is a chart on the wall giving conversions from kg to stone and pounds. I looked into this online. I saw an application form for the police that requires height to be given in metres and weight to be given in kg. There was no specific provision on the form for non-metric values. There used to be a minimum height to be a police officer but that has been abolished but they do check for weight proportional to height. I expect they simply use the metric values for a BMI check. http://www.met.police.uk/mostwanted/ Or try the following various keys in google. For example: police.uk metres police.uk height police.uk metres accident
