Since you don't want to modify signs you paid for with your tax money, you may want to try something else. You may want to enlist some friends or relatives who are pro-metric to call the city department that called you and have them ask the person who talked to you as to what 1 inch means. They saw the signs and they want to know what it means in modern units or units they learned in school and use everyday.
If the representative thinks that people understand FFU, then give her examples of people who don't. know what that means. The other thing that sounds odd is the rounded one inch per week. How do we know it really isn't 2 cm or even 3 cm but was rounded 1 inch to make it appear as a nice rememberable number in FFU. I would think that a simple number in FFU, like 3 cm would work just as well as 1 inch. Euric ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen Gallagher" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, 2004-06-25 16:52 Subject: [USMA:30212] Sign in Ottawa expressing lawn watering in inches > > > > I will definitely sent a letter indicating my displeasure to my > > city council representative. Canada is officially metric, weather > > reports are given in metric units, and children are educated in > > metric. There was no reason not to include metric on that sign. > > > > I received a phone call from the Ottawa city > department responsible for deploying the water > efficiency signs that say our lawns require 1 > inch of water per week. > > The representative said that when the signs > were designed it had been discussed whether > to format the signs with metric, metric/imperial, > or just imperial. > > 25 mm > 25 mm / 1 inch > 1 inch > > The second option was ruled out because the readers > would be driving past the signs, so the city wanted > to make them quick and easy to read. She then said > that the imperial value (1 inch) was chosen over > the metric value because they felt that the target > audience was more familiar with inches than millimetres, > and that the majority of today's homeowners in Ottawa > were educated before metric was introduced in the late > 1970s. > > I expressed my opinion that if only one unit had > to be used, then it should have been the millimetre. > > Further, I stated while the argument for not using > metric is because people aren't familiar with it, > they will never become familiar with it unless they use > it. > > I was thanked for expressing my opinion, and that > they'd keep it in mind for future decisions. > > Stephen > >
