At 2010-06-10T10:48-0500, [email protected] wrote: > Yes, John. My objection is the dumbed-down unit used by the AP > ("foot"), not the excess precision of the estimated depth. I see that > I previously wrote "numbed down" which my spell checker did not > reject, but "numbed down" also applies. Gene.
Numbed down is better than dumbed down. Dumbed down implies simplification which changing from metric into non-metric units _never_ does. If anything, changing from non-metric to metric is dumbing down (although it's simplifying without the oversimplification implied by the phrase dumbing down). I suggest "complexify" as a better word for changing metric into non-metric. If a perjorative can be found that truly expresses how stupid such a transformation is, then by all means use that. Paul
