I've had a huge fight with my company's Corporate Communications department over "kph". I was told in no uncertain terms that they are going to follow every word in the AP Stylebook no matter whether it is right or wrong, and that advocating otherwise is not particularly welcome. Fortunately there has been a reorganization and the new head of the group is a long time employee who is also a friend. Maybe I can get something done.
Somebody at the AP is being very pig-headed about this and probably thinks we are a bunch of "metric nuts" and can be ignored. Carleton From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John M. Steele Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2012 18:54 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:51705] Fw: Re: Re: 2012 AP Stlyebook Available, still with metric errors Well, I ordered the 2012 AP Stylebook and it arrived. I checked and they incorporated ZERO of the seven recommendations below and detailed in my letter to them last summer. They remain commited to innumeracy and incorrect metric usage. Most important is NOT incorporating a good metric reference (SP 330) in their bibliography as the other issues would sort themselves out if they had a reference. However, they prefer obsolete and erroneous definitions of the kelvin and liter, outdated radiation units, incorrect symbols for km/h and kW.h, and to report the field events of track in field only in feet and inches although they are measured only in metric (except high school). On the subject entries, not a word was changed. They remain secure in their position as the root cause of most metric usage errors in the US media. I guess my copy of the Stylebook will be donated to my local library as I see no point wasting further time or money with them. --- On Thu, 5/31/12, John M. Steele <[email protected]> wrote: From: John M. Steele <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [USMA:51661] Re: 2012 AP Stlyebook Available To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>, [email protected] Date: Thursday, May 31, 2012, 11:40 AM Stan, They mostly require spelled out unit names, but they allow a few selected symbols that they consider "widespread." Naturally, they get these wrong as in kph and kwh, which they specifically allow. Unfortunately, they should be km/h and kW.h, which they DON'T allow, even as an alternate. I agree with your recommendation that symbols are preferred to spelled out units. However, the point is debatable. Is the metric for Americans (who aren't very metric and may not understand), or for foreign readers (and immigrants) who don't understand Customary well? The former may prefer spelled out units, the latter symbols. In either case, spelled out units or symbols (assuming they are correct) are both accepted in the SI. My initial focus was their outright errors. After those are fixed, THEN we can work on their basic metric policy (convert to Customary unless the metric is an important part of the story (with complete lack of guidelines on what is "important.") I wrote to one automotive writer about kph vs km/h. I pointed out that under FMVSS 101, kph is illegal on the instrument panel of the cars he writes about, and km/h is required (assuming a dual unit speedometer). I encouraged him to use the correct (and legally required) km/h instead of the stupid AP kph to avoid confusing his readers. He didn't care. He shrugged it off as, "it's an AP thing." Why should readers understand the article as long as AP pays? --- On Thu, 5/31/12, Stanislav Jakuba <[email protected]> wrote: From: Stanislav Jakuba <[email protected]> Subject: [USMA:51661] Re: 2012 AP Stlyebook Available To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Cc: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Date: Thursday, May 31, 2012, 10:23 AM I also would appreciate hearing if AP "listened" to this suggestion: AP recommends in its Stylebook to spell out names of units and prefixes. I believe this practice is long obsolete as people encounter symbols of units and numbers daily, such as with grocery labeling or auto-parts packages. Often, people know those symbols but not necessarily the words they represent. Avoiding spelling the words saves paper space and ink, provides for understanding among languages, and eases reading. Finding numerical data in a text is a breeze. Please adjust the wording in the Guide to allow or, better yet, recommend the use of symbols. For example, just as the 5 in a statement such as 5 kilowatthours is allowed to be a symbol so should be the brief 5 kWh. Stan Jakuba On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 8:22 AM, John M. Steele <[email protected] <http://us.mc1811.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]> > wrote: The Associated Press has begun accepting orders for the 2012 edition of their Stylebook, the source of most metric usage errors in the media. At $20.95 + $7.95 S&H, I am not rushing to buy. (Last year, I got a discount through Amazon later in the summer). If any USMA member has access to the 2012 edition through their organization, I would very much appreciate feedback on whether they have made any of the seven corrections I recommended last year. My full letter is a Word attachment to USMA 50894, still available on the archive. A simple summary of the recommendations, which may be used as a checklist is: * Bibliography: No authoritative metric reference, consider NIST SP330 * Kelvin: Offset to degrees Celsius is incorrect, should be 273.15 degrees * Kilometer per hour: Abbreviation "kph" is wrong, should be "km/h" * Kilowatt hour: Abbreviation "kwh" is wrong, should be "kWh" * Liter: Definition is obsolete, properly defined as 1 cubic decimeter * Nuclear terminology: The "standard" units given are obsolete and need update * Track and field: Needs correct metric examples for field events NOTE: On the nuclear point, gray, sievert, and coulomb per kilogram should replace rad, rem, roentgen. If anyone is able to check these for me, thanks in advance.
