I found your story interesting.  I think there is a viewpoint in the English speaking US and UK that despite the metric system being used everywhere (most people think it is only used in Europe), all people understand and use FFU.  Part of the BWMA propaganda is that one can still find FFU used in metric countries and people understanding it.  That the real people prefer "common" measures to metric.  This may have been the impression of the man from the UK.
 
Refusing to use FFU may be seen as knowing it, but not wanting to use it.  Maybe for political reasons.  The best way to react is to act ignorant of FFU, like it never existed.  If someone asks for something in FFU, ask back what the word means.  Look puzzled.  If they start to explain that it is a measuring system used in the US or maybe the UK, then say you are not in the US nor UK and I have never heard of it before.  Make them realise that FFU is not widespread used or popular as they may believe.  If need be, show them examples of total SI use and explain that this is all you encounter as far as measurements are concerned and all you have a feel for.
 
When travelling to the UK, I would not even use FFU there.  I'd speak only metric.  Remember, the UK is suppose to be a metric country, so there is no reason or excuse to use FFU there.  Those who claim to be ignorant of SI in the UK are pretending not to understand it.  They do indeed, as they are exposed to it daily.  You would do them no service if you did.  If foreigners come to the UK using FFU, then what incentive is there for them to learn and accept the universality of SI?  With enough examples of SI usage in the UK, there should be no reason to justify using FFU there.  The same goes for Ireland.
 
 
Euric 
----- Original Message -----
From: Han Maenen
Sent: Friday, 2004-05-07 16:39
Subject: [USMA:29703] A tale by a colleague

Last Friday, while having coffee during a pause, a colleague said he had been in Prague last year. He met someone from Britain there. This person asked my colleague's weight. He answered that it was 96 kg.
The Briton 'did not understand' kilograms and that he should give his weight in stones and pounds.
My colleague said that he did not understand stones, which of course was true. He did not learn that stuff at school, and Prague is deeply within metric system territory.
That the Briton did not know (really?) about kilograms is one thing (just like young Britons a few years ago who thought that a sign in Belgium saying 'Breda 40' meant 'Breda 40 miles' -- probably 'educated' by The Sun), but when he expects metric using people in an metric country, to understand and use ifp, that is ^+%@&*+*&@$!!!!!!!! Giving in to such people is the worst thing a metric user can do.
Why do persons like that travel to metric countries, one wonders? Maybe he was a member of the BWMA and the UKIP. What if one tells him bluntly: "I refuse to use your measuring units!"
On the other hand, once I left Britain and there was a British truck driver, going to work in The Netherlands. He asked me a distance in kilometers from one to another Dutch city! I glady gave him the requested information.
 
Han
Historian of Dutch Metrication, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
 

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