Pat - they will be referring to the UK foot (which is currently the same as the US one). That being a third of a yard, with the yard being accurate to conversion from the metre. As far as two legally defined measures left - we do have - miles, yards, feet and inches on our roads (and, of course, 'hours' within mph!). Also soft drinks and 'splashes' in pubs are commonly sold as ounces (as seen on the receipt - which suggests there are legal implications, whether they be by measure or trade description or whatever). Car adverts show mpg in the print at the bottom. Usually the mpg is shown first and the metric equivalent in brackets after - sometimes the metric is missing and I'm not sure if that is technically lawful or not. I believe there must be accuracy surrounding these figures though. There are others but I've covered a few in relation to this thread. Interestingly the subject of 'which foot' never usually comes up when such a measure is used- when advocating metric I would avoid such references. Liquid ones would have more clout though - ie the fact we have 20 floz in a pint whereas the US has 16 floz (Queen Ann measures) - that sort of thing. Hope that helps.
CC: [email protected] From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [USMA:46977] RE: International Expeditions to Mt. Everest? Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 10:19:15 +1100 On 2010/03/27, at 06:08 , Martin Vlietstra wrote:Most maps will be in metric (I don’t know about the US though), so the mountaineers will use metric units. Of course the press will dumb it down for the benefit of their readers, but that does not means that the mountaineers themselves use feet. Dear Martin, You say for the benefit of their readers but I would disagree. The conversion from metric units to some form of the old pre-metric measures arrives at a cost to the readers. The media do not specify which of the old pre-metric measures they are using so they as they almost always fail to note which conversion factors they have used. But a worse point is that the media with their fun and games with conversions give the illusion that using old measures is somehow morally right. Bishop John Wilkins would roll in his grave at St. Lawrence Jewry in London if he knew that his 'universal measure' was still being used to support these old, complex, obscure, secret, and territorial measures. As you know the UK has only two legally defined old measures left and these are both strictly defined as metric measures (the pint is 568 millilitres and the mile is 1609.344 metres) but these are enough moral support for you sports reporters to say and to write 'It missed by two feet'. It obviously doesn't take much to warp an entire culture. Cheers, Pat NaughtinAuthor of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, that you can obtain from http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,Geelong, AustraliaPhone: 61 3 5241 2008Metric 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. _________________________________________________________________ Send us your Hotmail stories and be featured in our newsletter http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/
