When an event is live, such as the media riding on the tanks at the
beginning of the Iraq war and the recent Air France crash in Toronto as just
a few examples, it is not possible for the media to put words into other
people's mouths. The printed press is different. They have time to make
conversions and translations to give the impression the things were spoken
in English units instead of metric.
It is not common in the US to use yards for distances. Yards in the media
only appear as a word change from metres. Americans tend to use feet
instead.
Thus it is no surprise to see metric units used first then hours later
appear as English units after someone was able to do a conversion or a word
change.
Dan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Remek Kocz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, 2005-08-04 23:14
Subject: [USMA:33835] Smarting up.
We've had much comment here about the dumbing down of the metric
dimensions by the US news media in connection with the recent Air
France crash in Toronto. How about the process working in reverse,
for a change:
A few days ago, when the news of the space shuttle problems first
emerged, BBC's website reported the length of the protruding ceramic
strips as 1 1/2 inches (probably a NASA dumbing-down). Several hours
later, the same report was "smarted up" to 4 cm.
Remek
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