[USMA:35683] RE: Canadian usage of SI in a B.C. newspaper

[Carleton MacDonald]

The London Daily Telegraph, a conservative paper, is holding down the rear guard – articles are in imperial only unless metric was quoted.  At least it is like this on their web site (www.telegraph.co.uk).   Carleton   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ezra Steinberg Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2006 16:14 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:35677] Canadian usage of SI in a B.C. newspaper   I must say I was very pleasantly surprised today to discover that a newspaper in British Columbia appears to use SI whenever it can.   I found the page of the paper posted in someone's cubicle here a work (Portland, Oregon area). Since the entire newspaper wasn't available and the name of the paper isn't printed on the page, I can only say the article came out in October of 2005. The section name is "Regional", the topics on both sides of the page pertain to British Columbia, and the size of the page is small tabloid. That size makes me wonder if it is not a regional newspaper,  and maybe even a weekly.   In any case, the article was instructive because it talked about how a man survived a grizzly bear attack. The entire article used SI -- kilograms for the mass of the bear and meters for distances. (They know the mass of the bear because rangers found the bear and shot it.) The one place where they used feet was in the quote from the victim about how far he was from the bear before it attacked. Since it was a direct quotation, and since he is a man in his seventies who obviously spent most of his life using Imperial units, I was not surprised or dismayed.   I found an interesting contrast on the back side of the page which was part of the sports section. The articles talked about Canadian Football League games, so I was not surprised to see distances for rushing and passing given in yards only. That's inevitable given the context.   If this paper really is a regional one in west coast B.C., it encourages me quite a bit when it comes to the future of SI usage in Canada. (I would have assumed that big city dailies were more likely to use SI and smaller regional dailies or weeklies in rural areas to be more conservative and resistant.) It also makes me wonder if Canadian printed press in general (which is privately controlled media, unlike official government organs like the CBC where I absolutely expect and get pure SI usage) uses SI more consistently than, say, the UK printed press. (It seems that some newspapers there consistently use SI, while others seem to favor Imperial almost exclusively.)   Ezra