I did just see a package of dental floss that had a 50 meter length on it but no US equivalent measure so I've now seen one product officially. This was given to me by my dentist and not sold in a store though so maybe that changes it somehow.
The only other thing that really bothers me is when metric labels use commas instead of periods. .5L I'm okay with but ,5L just bugs me for some reason. Makes me feel like there was some phrase before the measurement and I lost half a sentence somewhere :). The period on the other hand to me is a natural stop point so if I see 3.785L it just makes more sense.
I also have to convert millimeteres to centimeters every time I see them because I'm so used to thinking of an inch as 2.54cm. Case in point being the other day there were some Rubbermaid plastic containers that were 25cmx30cmx25cm and for fun I mentally switched them to millimeters. Somehow I lost all sense of how big the box actually was. If it hadn't been right there in front of me I might have had to go find a ruler and remeasure it in centimeters so I got my bearings back.
I''m sure many other people from metric countries have the same feeling whenever they come to the US.
On 10/21/06, Paul Trusten,
R.Ph. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I haven't seen U.S. metric-only labeling (it is not legal yet), but I have certainly seen metric-only advertising. Store marquees and shelf tags hawk liter-sized beverages. I even saw a convenience store marquee that was thinking decimal metric when it said "Ozarka Spring Water 0.5 LITER." While we are supposed to follow the rule of 1000 in the U.S. (a unit of less than one gets stated in its submultiple, e.g., 500 mL instead of 0.5 L), I saw liters expressed in decimal submultiples on Coca Cola and other bottled beverages in Germany. I kinda liked that, even though it wasn't very instructional (didn't let people use SI prefixes).Mike,I am certain that if the FPLA amendment went into effect now, and Coca Cola removed the non-metric labeling from its liter-sized bottles, no American, save the anti-metric fanatics (there are some) would notice or complain. I think I can say that, as far as the people of the U.S. are concerned, the liter is the psychological standard of measurement for carbonated beverages, and removing the non-metric statement would not at all be unfair to U.S. consumers. That is why that, during National Metric Week, I wrote to a Coca Cola official urging his company to round the vending machine bottles from 591 mL to 600 mL, so they'd be labeled "600 mL (20.3 fl.oz.)."----- Original Message -----From: Mike MilletSent: 06 Oct 21,Saturday 10:11Subject: [USMA:37402] Re: Losing the battle by inches | Chicago TribuneInteresting article. Thanks for posting it . I haven't seen any packages being sold with solely metric units on them though from what I can recall of my trips to various stores. I've seen packages with the metric label first like dishwasher soap book tape and several other items, but never metric only. At Best Buy where I work we do have several price signs that mistakenly got printed that were SI only (3m network cables for example). No customers have complained, nor do they complain when I give them ranges on things like wireless in meters either so maybe it's not as unknown in the US as people would have us believe.
Anyone else seen metric only package labels in their travels?
Mike
On 10/21/06, Nat Hager III < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:Chicago Tribune...
http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel/chi-0610140259oct15,0,6507234.story?col
l=chi-travel-hed
Nat
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"The boy is dangerous, they all sense it why can't you?"
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"The boy is dangerous, they all sense it why can't you?"
