More likely culture and familiarity. Was the guy young or did he seem like he'd been around a few years? When one gets comfortable talking industry jargon its hard to change. I find myself doing it all the time. I think it was Stan Jackuba, a member of this list, who once taught me as our office begin the conversion process, that we must be bilingual. The conversion process may go fast on paper but will take generations to truly complete, but as they say you have to start someplace.
Howard Ressel Project Design Engineer, Region 4 (585) 272-3372 >>> "Ezra Steinberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 07/02/06 2:47 AM >>> I listened to a very interesting piece from the BBC (broacast over NPR) about how state-of-the-art the waste treatment facilities are in Calgary, Alberta. I was not surprised to hear the Canadians being interviewed use kilometers in their speech (pronounced always as kill-AH-muh-ters, whereas the BBC announcer said KILL-uh-mee-ters). However, I was suprised to hear an engineer use kilometers to describe distance and then a few sentences later use gallons to describe the amount of water flow through their system). Does that likely come from the fact that perhaps the equipment in use there comes from the States and is constructed using only customary units in the sales literatures, gauge readouts, etc? (One would have thought that, even in that case, the manufacturer would offer a simple way of switching between US Customary and SI to accomodate a world-wide customer base.) Ezra
