"crank up the awning"
---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2010 05:48:09 -0800 (PST)
>From: "John M. Steele" <[email protected]>
>Subject: [USMA:49057] Re: Another "metric system"
>To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
>
> OK, we all cheat and call it the metric system, but
> we are not supposed to. We are supposed to call it
> the International System of Units (the SI for
> short). Is it fair for the SI to "copyright" a
> phrase that it rejects as referring to itself? (It
> and Sports Illustrated may have a legitimate beef
> with each other.)
>
> Businesses everywhere have systems of metrics
> (usually plural) to measure their performance. I
> would suppose, given how English works, that any one
> measure of a set of measures is then a metric.
> English has many examples of words spelled the same,
> or sounding the same, with different meanings. I'm
> sure it makes English hard to learn, but context
> usually sorts it out: "Remember to wind up the
> awning before the wind blows it to pieces." Which
> meaning would you forbid and require another term
> for?
>
> ------------------------------------------------
>
> From: Pat Naughtin
> <[email protected]>
> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]>
> Sent: Wed, December 8, 2010 1:12:08 AM
> Subject: [USMA:49053] Re: Another "metric system"
> On 2010/12/08, at 15:54 , Pat Naughtin wrote:
>
> Dear All,
> It seems that a "metric system" can bob up
> anywhere.
> See
> http://frenchtribune.com/teneur/102377-nursing-metric-shows-higher-expected-mortality-4-hospitals
> where
> they say, "A metric system that is closely linked
> to providing quality nursing care and the
> availability of number of nurses, known as Nursing
> metric. This has shown that four hospitals have
> showed mortality rates which are much higher than
> expected."
>
> To add to this message. Isn't it great fun to have
> two "metric systems" in all hospitals. That's right
> up there with the inability to choose mL instead of
> ml to create the most possible confusion.
> Remember that medical errors in hospitals are rife
> and cost much suffering and many lives. Let me quote
> from, "A metrication elephant"
> at http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/AMetricationElephant.pdf
> ##
>
> Health
>
> Americans are increasingly concerned with the cost,
> quality, and availability of health care. How do you
> see science, research, and technology contributing
> to improved health and quality of life?
>
> It is reported that, at present, there is an average
> of 1.7 medical errors per patient per day in USA
> hospitals. Many – but I don't know how many– of
> these are due to conversion errors when converting
> patient's body mass from pounds to kilograms (or in
> the case of babies from pounds and ounces to
> kilograms and/or grams).
>
> According to a report at
>
> http://www.aarp.org/research/health/carequality/Articles/aresearch-import-711-IB35.html
> 'The average number of errors per patient per day
> was 1.7.'
>
> Many, many, people die every day as a result of
> errors in unnecessary conversions. Note that the
> only reason for these conversions is to maintain the
> thin veneer of misinformation that doctors and
> nurses in the USA are using old
> pre-metric measures in their surgeries and hospitals
> — but this is simply not true and it has not been
> true for decades. All medical research in the world
> (including the USA) is done using SI metric units,
> medical drug products are developed and tested using
> SI metric units, and the doses are then refined and
> delivered with dosage units like milligrams per
> kilogram.
>
> Go
> to http://www.visicu.com/solving/research/mederrors.html to
> see quotations like this: '… medical errors were
> estimated to kill up to 98,000 Americans each year
> and to be due to human error "60-80%" of the time.
> That is more people in one year than died in the
> entire Vietnam War. That is more people than die
> from automobile accidents, AIDS or breast cancer
> yearly.
>
> ##
> 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/ to
> subscribe.
