You mean "why does the British people insist on continuing to use it" ?
Despite various different elements of body weight recording being mandated in metric from a legal enforcement point of view people still continue to choose to use stones and pounds. They're not forced to use stones or kilo's and there is no law in place to force people toward imperial or metric in that respect. So how do you stop people using stones/lb? Would you advocate banning measuring devices, controlling the press and government agencies censoring womens magazines? It's not an easy one - I grant you that, but I think it's probably too late to use 60's style state powers in the 21st century - what do you think? From: [email protected] To: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: RE: [USMA:46662] RE: NBC's Annoying Luge Coverage at the Olympics Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 06:34:07 +0000 This is proof of the stupidity of using one system of units for weighing people and another for weighing objects! We should be using one or the other. Since the stone is not legal for trade, not is it used in official medical records, nor is it used anywhere else in the world (apart from maybe the Republic of Ireland), why does the British press insist on continuing to use it? From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Stephen Humphreys Sent: 15 February 2010 22:33 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:46662] RE: NBC's Annoying Luge Coverage at the Olympics I'm afraid I can't comment as I have not seen any coverage myself. I suspect that it will be similar to in the past - ie no formal instructions leaving it up to the commentator. No doubt some will use metric only - some imperial - some a mix of both. I remember seeing the weight lifting in the commonwealth game. I have no doubt the weights were in kg but the commentator converted to stones and pounds. st/lb is usually reserved for personal human weight so this was a first for me. It did raise a few eyebrows in my house at the time as people commented on how a woman was lifting a bar that was heavier than the average weight of men in the room! Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:46:03 +0000 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] CC: [email protected] Subject: [USMA:46656] RE: NBC's Annoying Luge Coverage at the Olympics I'm still not surprised that NBC, as an American network, uses US Customary units as much as possible. However, there has been talk from correspondents in the UK that local coverage oriented towards Britons (rather than a world audience) typically uses Imperial. Can anyone over there tell me which units the local BBC and local media outlets are using to cover the Olympic events? Cheers, Ezra ----- Original Message ----- From: "Martin Vlietstra" <[email protected]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, February 15, 2010 1:31:41 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: [USMA:46655] RE: NBC's Annoying Luge Coverage at the Olympics At the Athens Olympics, the British woman’s marathon hopeful, Paula Radcilffe was suffering from a stomach bug. Although she led for much of the race, things caught up with her and she visibly got to the 36 km mark (denoted by a huge “36”). She stopped, summoned up strength, and then withdrew a short distance afterwards. Even though millions of Britons saw this on television and the commentator used the word “36 kilometre mark”, the press was divided as to whether she had covered 21 miles, 21.5 miles or 22 miles. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John M. Steele Sent: 15 February 2010 00:01 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:46650] NBC's Annoying Luge Coverage at the Olympics In the end, the luge is scored entirely by summing finish times. However, during the run, some split times and speeds are available. The speeds, like everything else are SI, kilometers per hour, and NBC flashes those graphics on screen. Apparently the announcers get instant coversion and yack endlessly in miles per hour while you are looking at on screen graphices in km/h. The disconnect is both annoying and confusing. NBC: Please let have the REAL results. Don't bother converting. (You will be less confused if you mute the announcers and just read on-screen graphics.) Fortunately, there are fewer Winter events they can screw up with unnecessary conversion. compared to the Summer Olympics. Not got a Hotmail account? Sign-up now - Free _________________________________________________________________ Tell us your greatest, weirdest and funniest Hotmail stories http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/
