Dear Mr. Percy,
Thank you very much for your quick reply to my letter and especially for
addressing the concerns of a foreigner. In the U.S., members of the House of
Representatives and the Senate rightly refuse to receive email from anyone but
one of their respective constituents, so I am honored by your expenditure of
valuable time. Yet, I can also see by your second email that I have pressed
one of your hot buttons. I assure you it is also a hot button of mine, and has
been for 38 years.
I also apologize for my bumbling email-ery. I had wanted to finish my letter to
you, but if you keep reading my original message, you'll see it is incomplete.
On that last point I surely agree, except to say that there is confusion enough
on UK measurements without any change in education. On my visit to Edinburgh in
2009, I had to ask what the speed limit signs meant. They looked just like the
ones in Germany: red circle around a number. I learned by asking that they
meant miles per hour. Perhaps it is time for the UK to change fully to the
metric system, roads included. My proposal is to finish what was started.
Partial metrication is not metrication. True metrication is what was done in
Australia: everything metric, right down to the grams of steak in restaurants
and the frame of reference in warning signs ("no smoking within 5 meters"). I,
above all people, do not want to promote confusion in matters of measurement.
But metrication cannot succeed without teaching only ONE system. I am told that
metrication was the goal of your government's actions in 1965, and, as is the
case in the U.S., where an abortive attempt was made to change to metric in the
1970s, our countries still have work to do, as neither a man nor a country is
an island any more.
Why this obsession with keeping the measurement of only beer in imperial
measurement? Is milk in imperial? I shopped in Edinburgh, and and found
consumer products generally to be metric. How can a nation exist with the
public emphasis on metric in some areas and a different emphasis in others?
Is there a particular romance in being nonstandard?
I don't know if you have this problem in the UK, but here in the U.S., the
cultural prevalence of two systems of measurement, contrary to what you wrote
in your article, surely does us harm. The healthcare system continues to
condone the use of teaspoonfuls and tablespoonfuls in medication orders. Our
Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP, www.ismp.org ) informs me that
there have been, I believe, about 50 reports of unit mixups that have resulted
in harm. One teaspoonful is approximately 5 milliliters, so if the units are
confused, the result can be a fivefold overdose. At this very moment, I am
involved in working with U.S. authorities to eliminate non-metric units in that
part of healthcare in which I am involved.
I want to thank you very much for the opportunity for this dialogue, and I know
it must be a pain to have your Blackberry get you angry, but I have my iPhone
doing it all the time (grin). I hope to continue this conversation.
As I failed to identify myself before, I shall now say that I am,
SIncerely,
Paul R. Trusten
Registered Pharmacist
Vice President and Public Relations Director
U.S. Metric Association, Inc.
www.metric.org
[email protected]
+1(432)528-7724
----- Original Message -----
From: [email protected]
To: Paul Trusten ; [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Sent: 2013-01-09 11:45
Subject: Re: It is called the INTERNATIONAL System of Units!
Hello there,
Imperial measurements are not going to be replaced on UK roads, not now, not
tomorrow and not any time soon. Nor are we going to allow the sale of beer in
litres.
As such children must learn both. Why do you want to endanger road users and
put children at risk by not having them learn the ONLY legal measure on our
roads. Seems a bit backwards and ignorant of you.
Regards
Andrew Percy.
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Paul Trusten" <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2013 11:39:38 -0600
To: <[email protected]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Subject: It is called the INTERNATIONAL System of Units!
Dear Mr. Percy,
I am writing to protest extremely any move to revive the teaching of imperial
units in British schools
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/9790670/Modern-schools-must-teach-imperial-measurements.html
).
To this, you may be thinking, : "Well, you Yanks broke away from us, so this
is none of your business." Not so. Measurement is everybody's business. And,
the U.S. is one of the original signatories to the Meter Convention in 1875,
thus making it a full partner in the building of the International System of
Units. Still, what happens in the UK concerns us. I am writing today, not only
to British interests, but to the educational interests on my side of the puddle
in the U.S., to urge the elimination of the teaching of pre-metric units in our
schools with all deliberate speed.
We shall show reverent respect to those old units, by which we lived our
lives for so many years. The Light Brigade will always ride half a league
onward, Robert Frost will forever have miles to go before he sleeps, and
people will continue to describe a slow process as "inching along." But, in
terms of commerce and science, we have been in a global time for many years.
Our planet is tinier than it has ever been. The inefficiencies (and, in my
profession, the dangers) of there being two extant systems of measurement is a
long-range practical problem that must be wrested from the political and
cultural objections of the moment. Our national identities should be tied, not
to our prejudice, but to our wisdom. To continue to teach the old units is to
nod to the perpetuation of their continued use.
In your article, you state that the coexistence of two measurement systems
has not done your country
Be they in London or Los Angeles, Manchester or Minneapolis, all school
children should be learning only the SI metric system of measurement in school.
To do otherwise would be a grand leap backward, which is opposite to the
direction of the world. The chorus of naysayers, be they in your country or
mine, does nothing but pull both of our lands down like quicksand. These were
the same voices that told the train riders to stick with the stagecoach, and
the automobile driver to revert to relying upon a horse.
