[USMA:35278] Re: Odd mixture of units on Aussie program for US market

[Stephen Humphreys]

I get irritated by the "poor old folk" argument too.  Like all life's woe's 
must be their fault.
In this particular case it's especially condescending as young folk tend to 
show a mixture of preference too.

From: "Philip S Hall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <usma@colostate.edu>
Subject: [USMA:35275] Re: Odd mixture of units on Aussie program for US 
market
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 19:27:07 -0000

Dear Pat and others

  You should rejoice that predominately Australians use the metric system 
for
  almost all that they do every day. You could also wonder at a society 
that
  tolerates the dumbing down of reality to pander to a small minority of
  nay-sayers by a group in the media, many of whom are functionally
  innumerate. The costs of doing this are enormous, (see 'The costs of
  non-metrication at: http://metricationmatters.com/articles ) but perhaps 
the
  Australian experience might provide some thoughts and directions for 
policy
  makers in the USA as you proceed toward your inevitable metrication.

We get this attitude in Britain as well. I'll never understand why it is 
that the media will readily pander to those who claim not to understand 
perfectly simple concepts such as temperatures in degrees Celsius or 
rainfall in millimetres, and yet are quite dismissive of those who ask them 
to adopt a rational policy of a single system of measurement in factual 
broadcasting and news reporting, with all the convenience, simplicity and 
immunity to conversion errors that would bring.

I could understand it if they had a policy of dual measurement for British 
audiences (imperial and metric) which they abided by until such times as 
the demand for imperial were to decline to insignificant levels, but they 
don't do this. If you listen to BBC news reports and weather forecasts 
you'll see and hear a random mixture, sometimes in metrc sometimes imperial 
but rarely both at the same time.

Now, obviously I don't advocate dual measures and have no wish for that to 
become the norm, but when as a viewer I complain about their inept handling 
of the issue I resent being told that they have to continue to broadcast in 
imperial units for the poor old folk who don't understand metric, when in 
fact those poor old folk, if they were really that obtuse, would must be 
having a hard time of it as it is. There is no way that their patterns of 
broadcasting can possibly serve the needs of those who are genuinely left 
cold by metric only reporting, nor those who unfamilair with imperial. In 
short it satifies no one.

They are clearly unwilling to burden themselves with consistent dual 
reporting or to clutter their narrative with it. So I don't see any logical 
way out apart from the one that most of us here would like to see.

Phil Hall