Ezra and all,
Countless experiments have shown that people tend to see what they are
looking for. Let's imagine tourists in Burma who are trying to fend for
their needs. They are going to be on the lookout for something that
seems familiar and that speaks to them in a language they understand. If
they are typical American tourists they can tell you of the many places
where they saw familiar units being used and that they don't recall any
other units. If they are tourists from almost any other country, they
will assure you that they saw zillions of metric indications and few, if
any, non-metric units.
We see this often in the U.S. I've had folks swear up and down that they
never see metric units used anywhere and then I have them read the
contents indication on their can of pop or the nutrition information on
their snack package. Indeed, sometimes I've asked people to read me what
the label claims to be on the 500 mL bottle of water and they just read
me the number of pints and floozies shown in parentheses, skipping right
over the "500 mL" that appears first. Yes, they realize that those
"other" units are metric. However they didn't "see" them until then and
if they had seen them earlier it didn't register long enough to create a
memory of that.
I've had beginning students in Physics who, during our first lab which
is on metric unit familiarization, would wave their rulers in the air
and proudly tell us that the college bookstore sells only "inch rulers".
I would ask them to tell me what's on the other edge of that ruler and
they are amazed at what suddenly appears there--namely centimeters. They
truly had not "noticed" the metric scale on those rulers.
I'm on the lookout for metric usage, so I see it quite often in the U.S.
Pat Naughtin has seen them here quite often as well, but he's a "metric
tourist" over here, so his eye gravitates to units with which he's
familiar. Non-metric people who live here rarely "see" what we see.
Actually they do see those metric units, but they don't notice them and
the experience does not register.
Jim
Ezra Steinberg wrote:
Well, I would certainly take your direct observations as gold, Michael.
I guess I don't undestand why the folks who posted replies to my query
on the Thorn Tree site would say otherwise.
Since it's a site for world travelers to help each other with questions
and issues, I assumed the posters were recent travelers to Burma,
themselves.
Ah, well ... let the confusion begin! ;-)
Cheers,
Ezra
----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Payne" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2007 8:09 AM
Subject: [USMA:39765] Re: Burma still using English units, it seems
This contradicts my direct observation while I visited Burma in 1997,
speedometers in cars I drove in were km/h and speed limits were
(according to my driver) km/h but written in the local Burmese
numerical script which was undecipherable to me, I asked out driver
what the speed limit was, he told me the answer as ** km/h. I did see
a Gas (Petrol) station with very old pumps that displayed in Imperial
Gallons. The Burmese just seem to accept what's thrown at them, I
doubt they import vehicles exclusively from the US, we have sanctions,
so they come from neighboring countries which are exclusively metric,
would not do much good to have mph speed limits when every car in the
last 30 years has only km/h on the speedometer. If some piece of
equipment comes from the US despite sanctions, they'll probably accept
it as is. Fact is sanctions by the US against Burma are probably
leading to less US units being seen there on any equipment.
Michael Payne
----- Original Message ----- From: "Ezra Steinberg"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, 25 November 2007 06:15
Subject: [USMA:39764] Burma still using English units, it seems
USMA folks:
I posted a couple of queries on a well-known travel site (Thorn Tree)
that seems to get a lot of traffic from Europeans.
I asked about the metric vs. Imperial situation in Burma (Myanmar) and
Liberia, the two countries often cited aside from the USA as still
using mostly Imperial.
No replies about Liberia (and I may not get any), but I got several
quick replies about Burma. These confirm that on road signs and in the
street Imperial is used exclusively.
Not earth-shattering news, to be sure, but at least it's up-to-date
first-hand information from recent visitors there.
Ezra
--
James R. Frysinger
632 Stony Point Mountain Road
Doyle, TN 38559-3030
(H) 931.657.3107
(C) 931.212.0267
