height, and that is a very good example of cm precision. I doubt if even in Australia people measure their heights in mm. It is more likely to be done in cm (note that a height of 1.74 m will probably be spoken as "one seventy four"
Going back to when I worked for Guinness - the Park Royal office, being North London, had a high proportion of "Southern Hemispherials". Although I know of a South African who quoted their height in metres I did not hear one Australian or Kiwi that did so. I once asked an Australian Unix contractor why he used feet instead of centimetres for this- and he responded sharply with "because a foot is handy length". He then proceeded to look at me with a "what a weird question to ask me" sort of way - since then I've never asked the same question to anyone!! ;-)
BTW - the reason why the "people's height" thing came up regularly is because one of the New Zealand contractors was extraordinarily tall.
Our foreign staff were all contract based - with visas.
