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Subject: [USMA:31748] Re: More metric in
periodicals
Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2005 15:47:56 -0600
AP articles on the tsunami crisis reported quantities in metric
units first,
with pre-metric units in parentheses.
There seems to be such a
proliferation of articles on the Tsunami in metric that someone had to remind
the readers of the Sunday Telegraph that this is not normal.
"In a Crisis, We Still Think in Feet and
Inches"
January 2 2005 at 5:24
PM |
Tony
Bennett |
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From today's 'Sunday Telegraph': Christopher Booker
making a point that has frequently been made on these bulletin
boards:
__________________________________________________
Christopher
Booker's notebook
(Filed:
02/01/2005)
__________________________________________________
In a
crisis we still think in feet and inches
Another contrast
brought out by reporting of the tsunami disaster has been between the two
quite different ways by which people now try to convey the scale of such a
terrifying phenomenon.
Those viewing it from a distance, such as
seismologists, have all spoken solemnly of walls of water "six metres
high" roaring "up to a kilometre" inland. However, those directly caught
up in this awful experience have almost without exception talked of the
sea "withdrawing several hundred yards", followed by "a wave 20 feet
high", which filled rooms "to within a foot of the ceiling".
It is
as if we now speak in two different languages: the language of ordinary
folk, and that of the ruling elite, abetted by politically correct BBC
hacks (although, initially, even one or two of these, in the excitement of
the moment, forgot to observe the orthodoxies).
This recalled the
reporting of the Iraq war in 2003. After days when BBC journalists had
dutifully spoken of US forces advancing "300 kilometres" towards Baghdad,
or dropping "907 kilogram" (2000lb) bombs, John Simpson was so shocked by
the sight of a US bomb dropping next to him that he told his audience it
had fallen only "10 feet or 12 feet away from where I was
standing".
As I observed at the time, I hope he had a stern note
from the BBC's ever-vigilant metric police instructing him that, if in
future he wanted to report a bomb falling only 10 feet away from him, he
should describe this as "3,045 millimetres".
_____
ENDS
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