. and I trust that he will be using international-sized paper as well!

 

  _____  

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of Pat Naughtin
Sent: 10 June 2010 02:15
To: U.S. Metric Association
Subject: [USMA:47624] Re: UK Transport Minister banishes metric in all
official communications

 

On 2010/06/10, at 02:12 , <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
wrote:






I returned Monday from a visit with my son and his family in Missouri.  My
son is a graphics artist who works at the Spirit of St. Louis Airport.

Many of my son's clients do business internationally. They require that the
layouts fit nicely on mm dimensioned sheets of paper.

SI is the language of international business.  Get with it!

 

Dear Gene,

 

It is also the common practice in Australia to layout drawings and designs
on paper specified in millimetres.

 

In the early days of this practice (early to mid 1970s) there were some who
balked at the size of some of the numbers - but they soon got over this as
they enjoyed the overall freedom from all the different kinds of fractions.

 

As a flavour of using millimetres in this sense you might like to read this
article about page borders:
http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/PageBordersInchesORmillimetres.pdf
where I calculate the paper savings in square millimetres.

 

One of the area figures I report was 43 690 mm^2 and when a friend remarked,
'That's a big number!' I replied, 'True, but do you think you could handle
such a big number if it was a prize you won in a lottery?', she replied, 'I
could handle an even bigger number in those circumstances.' I suppose it is
often a matter of context whether a number is large or small, and that in
turn is a matter of familiarity that takes a little time to learn -
typically about two weeks in the Australian drawing and building trades.

 

Cheers,

 

Pat Naughtin

Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, see
http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html

Hear Pat speak at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lshRAPvPZY 

PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,

Geelong, Australia

Phone: 61 3 5241 2008

 

Metric 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
<http://www.metricationmatters.com/>  for more metrication information,
contact Pat at [email protected] or to get the free
'Metrication matters' newsletter go to:
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