The last time that I went to a Subway store, in Australia, their main products were advertised as 'sixinch' and 'footlong'. Note that there are no spaces in the middle of the two created words 'sixinch' and 'footlong'. When asked, a Subway manager told me that they did this to get around an Australian law requiring metric product descriptions.
Since the newly coined words 'sixinch' and 'footlong' do not have spaces between the number and the unit (in the case of sixinch) and the unit and the descriptor (in the case of footlong) Subway believes that these variations protect them from legal proceedings if they are challenged about their products not complying with Australian law. They say they are using word descriptions not measurements.
However, it doesn't protect them from my personal boycott – I intensely dislike this kind of obfuscation and the damage that I believe it does to the Australian community.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin ASM (NSAA), LCAMS (USMA)*
PO Box 305, Belmont, Geelong, Australia
Phone 61 3 5241 2008
Pat Naughtin is the editor of the free online monthly newsletter, 'Metrication matters'. You can subscribe by going to http://www.metricationmatters.com and clicking on 'Newsletter'.
* Pat is the editor of the 'Numbers and measurement' chapter of the Australian Government Publishing Service 'Style manual – for writers, editors and printers', he is an Accredited Speaking Member (ASM) with the National Speakers Association of Australia, and a Lifetime Certified Advanced Metrication Specialist (LCAMS) with the United States Metric Association.
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on 2005-06-04 02.05, john mercer at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Hello. i have a question about desk fans. Has anyone ever measured the diameter of one. They usually come in 6 in 12 in and 16 in sizes. The reason i am asking this are these measurements exact or just rounded numbers. If they are just rounded numbers could the fans be 15 cm 30 cm and 40 cm? If these inch measurements are exact to convert them to cm to be legal you would have to give the exact size in cm. In the states do you have the chain of stores called subway? We have them in Canada and they advertise their sandwitches in 6 in and 12 in sizes. I wonder how close they are to these sizes? The reason i am asking about the size of fans is because i don't have a braille ruler to measure them myself. Thank you for your help, i really apreciate it a lot. john Mercer.
