Stephen, So the dimensions that appear in a sales brochure are not necessarily those that the house was built to but what was measured at the time of the sale. This makes me wonder as to the accuracy of the measurement, especially if someone were careless. When houses are built, aren't the dimensional details provided to the local authorities and via a visit to the city hall one can obtain the actual dimension from a document?
Since the meter and the yard are close, is it possible that some people would get the two confused especially when different circles tend to use different units in conversation? What circles would be more prone to speak metric versus English measures? Is it old versus young? Jerry ________________________________ From: Stephen Humphreys <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2009 1:25:19 PM Subject: [USMA:42550] Re: Small item seen on TV I admit I don't know any builders however I am a bit of a traveller myself. When I've bought and sold houses they've been measured up (room for room) with ft/in based LED gadgets. I've seen them do it. On my last house sale the estate agent I used also showed bracketed metres on the sales bumpf. My 24 foot lounge was - apparently - also 30 m long!! No-one seemed to notice the mistake except me (which got me thinking perhaps I spend too much time thinking about these things!!!) When people talk they will generally say things in imperial - eg to a response to "How far from work do you live" Some might even use time if the traffice is not vairable (as it is in SE England!!) For shorter distances people say yards - eg "The pub is about 200 yards on the left" I'm not about to say that no-one uses metres I know of someone who does (although this is the only example I've heard him use metric). Army people defintely use 100's of metres as one of my friends is in the army. However people *generally* use yards - that's work colleagues, friends, on TV and that person telling me where the pub is! ________________________________ Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2009 18:14:33 +0000 From: [email protected] Subject: Re: [USMA:42544] Re: Small item seen on TV To: [email protected]; [email protected] Many of the people that I know in the UK are world travelers like me, what does impress me is when one of them built another house and all the plans were in meters and that's what he talked about. Now if someone is going to tell me directions to a town or house, they might phrase it in miles because that is what the odometer displays. But from my experience, it's metric. Perhaps it's the circle of people you move in that defines the units you use? Mike Payne ----- Original Message ----- From: Stephen Humphreys To: U.S. Metric Association Sent: Sunday, 25 January 2009 18:03 Subject: [USMA:42544] Re: Small item seen on TV Lol - Martin got his km figures from markers on the side of the motorway! (I will let him explain) I wholly disagree that people do 'speak metric', from 40 years experience. ________________________________ Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2009 09:55:13 -0800 From: [email protected] Subject: [USMA:42540] Re: Small item seen on TV To: [email protected] Mike, From your description I would understand it to be that metric is used everywhere but on road signs. But road signs must be both if Martin said he was 55.7 km from London or did he just do a conversion? So people do speak in metric and don't really need to have things dumbed down as some one put it earlier. Your comments about pilots in the US explains why the last time I flew in a plane, the pilot hesitated before saying the temperature. He must have been trying to translate it from what was on his screen. Jerry ________________________________ From: Michael Payne <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2009 12:29:23 PM Subject: [USMA:42533] Re: Small item seen on TV I visit the UK perhaps 6-10 times a year, the people that I know in the UK tend to talk in meters/metres when referring to a new house size, etc. If you go into a UK hardware store it's almost all metric, supermarkets have gram scales, prices might be marked as pence/pound but normally pence/gram, it's weighed in grams. Fuel is sold in liters, road signs are all in miles and miles per hour but all road work is done in meters. In general it seems like a big mess which is why here in the US we need to do it differently, Australian/New Zealand and South Africa did a very good transition in the 60's and 70's. Most young people in those countries don't know non metric units. I'm a pilot, when I fly into the UK the atmospheric pressure is in hPa, the visibility is in meters, the runway length is in meters/feet. Temperature is Celsius, it's also Celsius for all pilots in the US. Call 703 661 2990 here in the US to listen to the weather pilots get at my local airport. Mike Payne ----- Original Message ----- From: Jeremiah MacGregor To: U.S. Metric Association Sent: Sunday, 25 January 2009 17:16 Subject: [USMA:42529] Re: Small item seen on TV When you say the UK is bi, do you mean they use both metric and English equally,? 50 % ? Or is there more of a leaning towards one or the other? How are both use equally without causing confusion? Say for instance in the medical field. Would a doctor speak metric and a nurse respond in English? It must make for some strange communications. Jerry ________________________________ From: Stephen Humphreys <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2009 11:40:08 AM Subject: [USMA:42515] Re: Small item seen on TV Because the UK is not metric (it's 'bi') and in the case of tyre pressures there are not laws forcing the use of metric. ________________________________ Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2009 08:00:18 -0800 From: [email protected] Subject: Re: [USMA:42494] Re: Small item seen on TV To: [email protected]; [email protected] Stephen, I interpreted the statement to mean that bar and kPa were the most common. It doesn't mean the is no psi, it just means it isn't very common. If the UK is metric then why would psi dominate and not kPa? Jerry ________________________________ From: Stephen Humphreys <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2009 10:27:02 AM Subject: [USMA:42494] Re: Small item seen on TV Except in the UK (which is part of Europe) where PSI dominates. Maybe you meant "Mainland Europe" ________________________________ From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [USMA:42439] Re: Small item seen on TV Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2009 15:22:34 +0000 The most common units of measure for tyre pressures in Europe are bars or kPa. (100 kPa = 1 bar). ________________________________ From:[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jeremiah MacGregor Sent: 24 January 2009 14:59 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:42430] Re: Small item seen on TV Harry, Aren't they suppose to be in pascals or something along that line? Jerry ________________________________ From:Harry Wyeth <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 11:39:58 PM Subject: [USMA:42388] Small item seen on TV A minor point of interest: on PBS's US broadcast of the BBC World News tonight, in a piece re the resumption of natural gas to Europe, there was "footage" showing close-ups of presssure gauges on pipeline fixtures out in the snowy fields. One showed pressure in kg/cm2, and the other in "bar". HARRY WYETH ________________________________ Share your photos with Windows Live Photos – Free Find out more! ________________________________ Windows Live Hotmail just got better. Find out more! ________________________________ Share your photos with Windows Live Photos – Free Try it Now! ________________________________ Windows Live Hotmail just got better. Find out more!
