When a count and a size are adjacent, one should be spelled out, or the sentence rewritten to avoid the situation. "3 L Box = Four 750 mL bottles" or other constructs.
________________________________ From: James R. Frysinger <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Wed, June 9, 2010 8:02:48 PM Subject: [USMA:47621] Measurement train wreck The July Consumer Reports issue (Consumer's Union, CU) features a blurb on the inside back cover regarding boxed wine. This is the location in the magazine that features labeling "gotchas". The one of interest here is for a wine box of Cabernet Sauvignon and the label states "3L Box = 4,750 Bottles". The CU reply is "That's one big box". First, I suspected that the comma was actually a decimal mark, making the meaning "4.750 Bottles". But if those are 750 mL bottles, only four of them would be required to contain 3 L of wine. So, the company may have used a comma as the decimal mark but also, perhaps, messed up their division of (3 L)/(0.75 L). No brand name is given for this box of wine. Jim -- James R. Frysinger 632 Stony Point Mountain Road Doyle, TN 38559-3030 (C) 931.212.0267 (H) 931.657.3107 (F) 931.657.3108
