If you feel strongly, then you should convince NIST to change their official recommendation in NIST SP 330 (I think you would also have to persuade the US Governement Printing Office). Until it is officially changed, we should NOT send mixed messages to our fellow Americans, whom we are trying to persuade to metricate, by departing from SP 330 recommendation, and leaving them with two contradictory US sources about metrication.
It is not like we are brimming with success in that goal. However, consistency can only help, and inconsistency can only help it fail. I would further point out that the SI Brochure acknowledges these differences and remains neutral on them. It neither condemns nor endorses, it simply states the differences exist and lists what they use. Also BIPM takes no position on spelling differences in other languages, only on the worldwide consistency of symbols (except "l" and "L" for liter, US prefers "L"). As for my own personal feelings, I see no reason to favor a general return to British spelling, and changing only metre, litre, deca- and otherwise retaining American spelling seems silly, so I would be for persuading NIST NOT to change. ________________________________ From: Anthony Fletcher <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Mon, February 4, 2013 5:08:08 PM Subject: [USMA:52318] RE: Spelling of "Meter" Sorry to disagree. The rest of the world uses metre and litre so the US should just follow. There are enough issues without changing the words as well..... It's going to be a hard battle anyway, you might as well go for the whole hog. Anthony. On 04 Feb 2013 at 19:31:27, mechtly, eugene a wrote: > I advocate the phonetic American English spelling "meter" for continental USA. > > When traveling in French speaking regions, I attempt to pronounce meter as >"me-tre." > > The attempt to distinguish the unit name "meter" from the name of an > instrument >"meter" by spelling reforms is without necessary justification in my opinion. >The spellings meter and meter are not a "reversion" but are continuity of well >established and correct practice in the USA. Combining attempted spelling >reforms with efforts to metricate the USA create only hostility to all metric >units of measurement, not just to the SI unit of length, the meter. > > Eugene Mechtly > > ________________________________________ > From: [email protected] [[email protected]] on behalf of >[email protected] [[email protected]] > Sent: Monday, February 04, 2013 12:48 PM > To: U.S. Metric Association > Subject: [USMA:52312] Spelling of "Metre" > > Carleton is correct in stating that there are those regional spelling > preferences -- in general. At one time the U.S. Metric Association made > what I thought was a useful distinction: "metre" is the measurement, > "meter" is the measuring instrument. > > Since making that distinction more than a decade ago, the USMA seems to > have reverted to the "meter" spelling for both, following the standard of > U.S. Government publications. Perhaps the USMA thought that the "metre" > spelling was too "exotic" for the U.S. > > As someone who thinks that distinctions are good to keep in language, I > prefer the USMA's original position distinguishing between the measurement > and the measuring instrument by a difference in the spelling. > > ============ > On Sun, 3 Feb 2013, Carleton MacDonald wrote: > > > With regard to spelling, sorry, both are right. In the USA it's meter, > > theater, center. In Canada and the UK it's metre, theatre, centre. > > It's a regionalism, NOT an error. >
