Dear Carleton,
This letter might help. I used this successfully to change the policy
of several national news papers in Australia.
##
The Editor
The Age
Dear Sir,
I am appalled at the response of your 'Drive' editor to a letter
written by Bert Smith in last Thursday's copy of 'The
Age' (2003-04-24). I quote your editor, 'The use of kmh is the style
adopted by The Age and other Fairfax papers'.
From which orphanage was this style adopted. It definitely did not
come from any reputable institution. I have checked with the National
Standards Commission in Australia, they use the correct units, km/h. I
have referred to the International System of Units 7th Edition 1998,
and the website of the Bureau Internationale de Poids et Mesures
(BIPM) and they use km/h. To make sure, I also checked with the
National Institute of Standards and Technology in the USA; they use km/
h. All of these sources recommend km/h as the correct international
symbol for kilometres per hour.
The unit symbol, km/h, is correct because it demonstrates how the
value was obtained. If I drive 120 kilometres in 2 hours, I then
calculate my speed as 120 divided by 2 to get 60 km/h. The fact that I
divided one number by another is included in the solidus contained
within the unit, km/h. Your travesty of your abbreviation, kmh, is
completely meaningless as it implies multiplying 120 km by 2 h (to get
240 kmh?), rather than the correct division.
You are wrong in using kmh as an abbreviation for kilometres per hour.
You are wrong because you are ignoring all international agreements
and standards. You are wrong because what you write, in the
abbreviation kmh, is simply wrong physics and wrong engineering.
Perhaps it was the nonchalance of your editor's explanation that
really raised my ire. It seemed to me that you are saying to the
Physics teacher, Bert Smith, 'We are wrong when we use kmh, we know
that we are wrong, but we don't give a stuff about you, your students,
or for that matter all of the other students in Australia'.
Yours faithfully,
Pat Naughtin
Pat Naughtin was a measurement consultant to the Australian Government
Publishing Service, 'Style manual: for writers, editors and printers,
6th Edition 2002'; he is also a Lifetime Certified Advanced
Metrication Specialist (LCAMS) with the United States Metric
Association.
##
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
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.
On 2010/07/02, at 21:00 , John M. Steele wrote:
Perhaps you could show them the Federal register article that states
the Dept. of Commerce and NIST, not AP, are empowered to interpret
the metric system for the United States. Then show them NIST SP330
and SP811.
From: Carleton MacDonald <[email protected]>
To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]>
Sent: Thu, July 1, 2010 11:13:05 PM
Subject: [USMA:48019] RE: AP coverage of Hurrican Alex
It’s nice that they are doing that, but I’m fighting with my company
over internal news items that use “kph”. When I ask them why they
are doing that, they say the “AP Stylebook says it’s OK.”
Carleton
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of John M. Steele
Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2010 13:18
To: U.S. Metric Association
Subject: [USMA:48006] AP coverage of Hurrican Alex
All measurements in this report are dual units.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100630/ap_on_re_us/us_tropical_weather
Except for the kph in place of km/h, it is mostly correct and
sensibly rounded. Has AP turned over a new leaf, or is this some
scheme to sell articles to non-US media too?
