I have interspersed some remarks (in blue).
On 22/10/06 3:34 AM, "Mike Millet" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I would also liike to see the Coke bottles in 600mL packages. Somehow that 591mL number bothers me.
Weren't these bottles originally designed as 600 mL bottles in the first place that were subsequently dumbed down to 593 mL to suit the old pre-metric 20 oz designation?
The one thing I think might be a little weird is that Americans are used to buying milk by the gallon and if you rounded it up to a four liter bottle it wouldnt fit in my fridge so I wonder if they'd just keep that as 3.785L.
The Australian experience was that milk sizes soon standardised to 1 litre, 2 litre, and more recently, 3 litre milk containers all of which fit neatly in the door of a refrigerator. The 2 litre container is more or less square with rounded corners in cross section, while the 3 litre container is the same width but rectangular in cross section.
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.
It must really gripe the medical supplies community to design, make, and then pack their many products in metric to suit the medical requirements of their clients, then dumb this down to suit some obscure packaging laws and regulations in the full knowledge that their clients will have to smart-up the dumbing-down to use the product in their medical or dental practices. It's bizarre!
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.
About half of the world's nations use a comma as a decimal marker and the other half use a dot (period or full stop) as their decimal markers. The only argument that I have seen to support either of these is that the comma uses a little more ink so it is easier to find on a busy background. On another issue, both .5L and ,5L as you have written them share the same two problems. Firstly it is not good practice to use a naked decimal marker 0.5 L or 0,5 L is better and clearer to see. Secondly, a space is needed to separate the number from the unit — this is also for clarity and to avoid confusion.
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.
This is a profound issue as far as any metrication is concerned as I have observed that using centimetres for a metric transition program rather than millimetres dramatically increases the length of the process. As an example, the Kodak company was ordered by their founder George Eastman to 'Go metric' in 1910. The film division chose to use millimetres and we have been using millimetres for film since 1911 — the metric transition took about one year. On the other hand, the photographic paper division chose to use centimetres and they are still struggling with their metric conversion in 2006 — 96 years later and counting. I have studied this issue fairly closely and you might like to read my further comments by downloading the pdf article, 'centimetres or millimetres – which will you choose?' from http://www.metricationmatters.com/articles
For you, personally, this is a mindset issue that is readily overcome by setting yourself the task of measuring and estimating only in millimetres for a few days. You will soon realise that your mindset has changed to millimetres from centimetres. And you will never need to use fractions again — either decimal or vulgar.
I''m sure many other people from metric countries have the same feeling whenever they come to the US.
You're absolutely right. When I visit the USA, I have the distinct feeling that I have travelled in time back to the 18th Century except that I know that this is all simply a veneer of old pre-metric words that are actually based on metric measures — an inch is actually exactly 25.4 millimetres for example.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305, Belmont, 3216
Geelong, Australia
Phone 61 3 5241 2008
Pat Naughtin is the editor of the free online monthly newsletter, 'Metrication matters'.
You can subscribe at http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter
Pat is also recognised as a Lifetime Certified Advanced Metrication Specialist (LCAMS) with the United States Metric Association. He is also editor of the 'Numbers and measurement' section of the Australian Government Publishing Service 'Style manual – for writers, editors and printers'. He is a Member of the National Speakers Association of Australia and the International Federation for Professional Speakers. See: http://www.metricationmatters.com
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