But to my original point, I noticed this particular box because the units used in the Spanish text were only metric whereas the units used in the English text were only USC. Usually I have seen the Spanish text translate USC directly (such as "pulgadas" for "inches" and "libras" for "pounds") with no metric.
How does this compare with the Spanish on the boxes in Lowe's and Home Depot that y'all have seen? -- Ezra ----- Original Message ----- From: "John M. Steele" <[email protected]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2009 7:24:37 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: [USMA:45802] Re: Unusual USC/metric combo on packaging I notice in Lowe's and Home Depot, nearly every box is marked in English and Spanish, but French seems quite rare. I don't object to the Spanish, but I do get annoyed when all the boxes are turned so the Spanish face is visible and the English isn't. (this happens at Costco too) I wonder if it has to do with the primary language of the stocking clerks? (or somebody else who speaks English bought the last "English" box?) --- On Sat, 9/12/09, James R. Frysinger <[email protected]> wrote: From: James R. Frysinger <[email protected]> Subject: [USMA:45801] Re: Unusual USC/metric combo on packaging To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Cc: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Date: Saturday, September 12, 2009, 8:47 PM A lot of stuff here in Middle Tennessee is labeled in both English and Spanish on the packaging. Lowe's does that quite a bit and one day my wife pointed out to the store manager that it would be nice if at least a few of the boxes of the ceiling fans she was looking at were turned around to show the English side! We have a fairly significant Hispanic population here -- probably due to the very large nursery business in our area -- but that alone would not account for all the English/Spanish bilingual labeling, I suspect. We also have a fair number of Tiendas Mexicanas (Mexican convenience stores) and most of their stuff is labeled only in Spanish and only in metric units -- fooey (or however you say that in Spanish) on the dual labeling law. Jim [email protected] wrote: > I came across an unusual (for me, at least) kind of packaging today. > > The product was a raised seat to be placed on a toilet for those who find a > regular height toilet seat too low to comfortably sit down on or get up from; > the store where I found this was a pharmacy. > > This was not a NAFTA box (since there was no French). Morever, while there > was also Spanish, that text was in a smaller size font than the English text. > What struck me was that, while the height of and the acceptable weight on the > raised seat was given in nice round USC (Imperial) numbers in the English > text (with no metric), the Spanish text showed the same values in unrounded > (odd-ball looking) metric (and only metric). > > If it were a NAFTA package, I could understand why the Spanish would use > metric only since the Spanish would be targeting a Mexican market (and the > French on such a package would be targeting a French-Canadian market). Since > this was an English/Spanish bilingual package, I would assume the Spanish is > there to target Spanish speakers living in the United States, most of whom > presumably have been "converted" to USC by sheer habituation over the years. > > Have others seen this kind of packaging? Any hypotheses as to what the > rationale is for this? > > -- Ezra -- James R. Frysinger 632 Stony Point Mountain Road Doyle, TN 38559-3030 (C) 931.212.0267 (H) 931.657.3107 (F) 931.657.3108
