I think they are inconsistent because they are inconsiderate of
measurement. They don't think measurement is important to the
audience, and I fear they are quite right. In motion pictures, they
refer to metric units for a "dramatic, scientific" effect, but they
often revert to inch-pound when using expressive frames of reference,
e.g., "Roger, proceeding 5 kilometers," vs. "Darn, that must be 50
miles away!" in the same presentation. I think a similar sloppiness
holds for some documentaries.
Paul T.
Quoting c...@traditio.com:
The Science Channel, which is a part of the Discovery complex, ran a
"How It's Made Program" last night. From the credits at the end, at
least this episode was produced in Canada. I was curious to see how
it would run in the United States.
The program, in the segment on the mining of silver ore, always used
kilograms instead of pounds. There was a close-up of a scale, which
displayed a reading in "mg". But a distance was given in inches.
These persistent inconsistences (as Canada certainly uses
millimetres or centimetres) are quite perplexing. I could
understand an all-metric program or an all non-metric program,
dumbed down for the United States. Another program, on astronomy,
talked about astronomical distances in miles (where it hardly
mattered for the common perception), but shorter distances (such as
for the size of a meteor) in metres.
It has always perplexed me why these programs are so inconsisent.
In a curious way, it confirms my approach that the United States is
*not* a non-metric country. It is a country stuck in the middle of
conversion, not unlike England and even Canada.
Martin Morrison
Training and SI Columnist, "Metric Today"
--
Paul Trusten
Registered Pharmacist
Vice President and Public Relations Director
U.S. Metric Association (USMA), Inc.
www.metric.org
3609 Caldera Boulevard, Apartment 122
Midland TX 79707-2872 US
+1(432)528-7724
mailto:trus...@grandecom.net
