"Customary" was coined centuries ago to mean the units selected for use in
the Customs Offices at all U.S. ports (for measurements, tariffs, customs,
etc.). The term was not intended to designate which units were customary,
the colloquial meaning of that word today.
Actually, in the U.S., most customary (not Customary) units outside the
daily life are of the metric rather than the medieval origin. For many
customary (not Customary) units in common use, no I-P equivalent ever
existed.
This "proper name" issue has been debated ever since I remember and I had
not yet
found a better term than English (as distinguished from Imperial) and, best
of all, inch-pound, or I-P for short.
Using terms such as conventional, customary, standard, American, etc., make
it psychologically more difficult to accept metric as it seems
unconventional, not-customary, non-standard, foreign, just plain
un-American.
Stan Jakuba
----- Original Message -----
From: "Patrick Moore" <[email protected]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Sent: 09 Oct 05, Monday 14:36
Subject: [USMA:45935] Re: teaching customary units
Yes, excellent. They are sometimes called "conventional," which has the
same
problem as "customary." I have called them "obsolete" and "old-fashioned"
very off-handedly, without caviling, and none of my wombatty readers
demurs.
From: "James R. Frysinger" <[email protected]>
Reply-To: <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:21:06 -0500
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Subject: [USMA:45934] Re: teaching customary units
Your point is well taken about using the term "customary", Robert.
However, the NIST Metric Program Office and others use the term "U.S.
Customary measures" to mean many of the non-metric ones used in this
country.
Jim
Robert H. Bushnell wrote:
Robert H. Bushnell, PhD. P.E.
502 Ord Drive
303-554-0827 Boulder, Colorado 80303-4732
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
Meteorologist and Consulting Engineer
in Solar Energy
Specialist in SI metric units
2009 October 5
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
Here it is metric week and I see for the first time the
NCTM position on measurement units: "provide students with
rich experiences in ... both metric and customary systems of
measurement".
Bad news. Teaching both causes smart students to see how bad
it is and give up on science and engineering. They go to the
humanities where the nonsense of two sets of units does not
show up. This leaves the USA way behind the rest of the world.
By the way, NCTM (and everybody else) should stop using the
term "customary". In the USA, metric will become "customary"
so for now the term "customary" is not meaningful. I use the
term "inch-pound". NCTM should too.
NCTM should set the following policy:
Schools shall not teach inch-pound units of measure.
Examples of units not to be taught are:
inch, foot, yard. mile,
pound, ounce,
degree Fahrenheit,
calorie, Btu.
"Not taught" means students shall not be tested about
inch-pound units and means that such units shall not be
presented as part of class room subject matter.
Teachers may respond to student's questions about inch-pound
units. Inch-pound units may be presented as part of history
but such use shall not be to find numerical values. Conversion
from inch-pound units to metric units may be used as examples
in algebra.
-------------------------
Robert H. Bushnell
--
James R. Frysinger
632 Stony Point Mountain Road
Doyle, TN 38559-3030
(C) 931.212.0267
(H) 931.657.3107
(F) 931.657.3108
