[USMA:37418] Re: Losing the battle by inches | Chicago Tribune

[Remek Kocz]

The comma being used as a decimal marker in metric product sizes is part of the "bilingual copout" that's been showing up on many products.  It is assumed that metric is only for foreigners, so wherever measurements are given on the packaging, the English text contains only USC measures, while the foreign-language text has only metric.  This perpetuates the myth that metric is irrelevant to English speakers.  Since comma is used as a decimal separator in many non-English speaking countries, using it with metric dimensions effectively tells the American customer that this is something foreign, and that this number doesn't concern him.

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.