Pat, A clear and exhaustive presentation! I don't think I've ever read so much about the controversy in one place. Thank you for preparing it. It looks like you put considerable effort into it, as you do with all your work.
I will apologize (apologise) for my fellow American who is so intolerant of alternative English spelling that he would make an issue out of it. One is not better than the other, just different. I understand the words in either form. Incidentally, as a son of Boston, Massachusetts, I grew up with the spelling "theatre." We New Englanders used it interchangeably with "theater." Perhaps we held onto our more wordly English heritage in this regard. Now that you reminded me of this, has anybody out there ever had a soft drink known as a Lime Rickey? It is this childlike intolerance to different cultures in the U.S. that turns metrication itself into a cultural, rather than a technical, issue up here. I will be happy to see our society accept metrication, period. I sense, however, that future legal and industrial issues will nudge a metric America toward the spirit of the SI brochure. In exercising his or her prerogative under the Metric Conversion Act and also laws yet to be enacted, a future Secretary of Commerce may very well support the "metre" spelling. I, a product of the latter-day U.S., still prefer "meter," but that is my identity. I understand "metre" just as well, and certainly respect its use to name the SI base unit of length. Paul T. ----- Original Message ----- From: Pat Naughtin To: U.S. Metric Association Sent: 07 October, 2008 16:52 Subject: [USMA:41803] Spelling metre or meter Dear All, I have cobbled together some thoughts on this issue and formed them into an article that I have placed at: http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/Spelling_metre_or_meter.pdf I would appreciate any comments. Cheers, Pat Naughtin PO Box 305 Belmont 3216, Geelong, Australia Phone: 61 3 5241 2008 Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA. Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST, and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com for more metrication information, contact Pat at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or to get the free 'Metrication matters' newsletter go to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter to subscribe.
