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Jim Frysinger
Please reflect proper use of the metric system. Your stylebooks to date
have hindered the teaching that our school children receive by
specifying incorrect symbols for metric units. One hesitates to accuse
AP of mal-education but that has been the case. For example, the symbol
for kilometer per hour is km/h, not kph. Refer to NIST Special
Publication 330 and NIST Special Publication 811.
Additionally, AP needs to join modern journalistic practice. Reporters
should be told to use the original metric units supplied by their
sources and not to convert them. If essential, conversions could be
inserted parenthetically, but not as substitutions. You should point out
in your stylebook that in 1988 the U.S. Congress declared the metric
system to be the preferred system of measurement in the U.S. By
intentionally shunning the metric system you lend the impression that
American journalists are not as well educated as the average citizen.
Surely that assessment is untrue but your stylebook lends evidence to
support it. Our students in primary and secondary education learn to use
the metric system properly. Hopefully journalists can do likewise.
--
James R. Frysinger
632 Stony Point Mountain Road
Doyle, TN 38559-3030
(C) 931.212.0267
(H) 931.657.3107
(F) 931.657.3108
On 2011-10-25 13:04, Bill Hooper wrote:
On Oct 24 , at 12:07 PM, John M. Steele wrote:
The AP Stylebook is the "cause" of most incorrect metric usage in the
media, such as the use of kph for km/h. They have a short period of
accepting suggestions in the fall for the next edition of the AP
Stylebook. I found the submittal form open today and they are
accepting suggestions through November 15.
http://www.apstylebook.com/?do=social_media
John,
Thanks for the information and the suggestion.
I have sent my recommendation to the AP.
Here, below, is my message.
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Please start using the offically recognized symbols for metric measures.
This is not a matter of style over which the AP can make choices. The
decisions and specifications for metric unit symbols are prescribed by
the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM). Only they have
the authority to specify correct symbols.
The CGPM is an organization esablished by an international treaty to
which the US is a signatory. Futhermore, Congress (and not the AP
stylebook) has the authority to establish the system of weights and
measures in the US and Congress has stated that the SI metric system is
the preferred system for weights and measures in the US.
Therefore, please adopt, as the AP "style", the CORRECT symbols for SI
metric units; e.g. "km/h" instead of "kpm" and others. School children
learn the correct symbols and the AP looks foolish when those children
become adults and see the AP reports being full of errors in metric news
and sports reports.
PS
I tried to keep the above succinct be omitting lengthy documention of
the claims in the above. However, I can provide documentation of you
sholud desire.
========================================
Bill Hooper
1810 mm tall
Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA
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SImplification Begins With SI.
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