If we try to push Americans to do everything all at once, then surely the resistence would correspondingly be all that much stronger. I suggest we start with the basics (like killing the inch, et cetera). Once we acheive that major hurdle, then uniformity details will naturally evolve. One step at a time please. Boil the Imperial frog slowly. If we crank up the heat too high, then the Imperial frog will jump out of the pot. (Sorry if that analogy seems a little inappropriate, but I think you get my point.) By the way, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) is an American non-profit and charitable organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, so I am not surprised that many Americanisms take precedence in the midst of multiple norms.
----- Message from Michael Payne <[email protected]> --------- Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 07:18:37 +0200 From: Michael Payne <[email protected]> Reply-To: [email protected] Subject: [USMA:54122] RE: Don't be a dunce! To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Cc: USMA <[email protected]>
I’m not saying you should change formats in your job, but it would be good if an organization like Wikipedia which is read worldwide, could adhere to what is an internationally recommended standard instead of the de-facto US format for numbers. If this were done companies like your may adapt to this standard in the future. Mike Payne On 14 Jul 2014, at 07:03, [email protected] wrote:I would be fired from my job if I were to insist that we change commas to spaces. Get a real-world perspective once in a while. I would LOVE to live in a clean, tidy world with uniformity in such matters. I think we would do well to pick our battles carefully. This battle is akin to Harold insisting that Americans spell metre instead of meter. ----- Message from Michael Payne <[email protected]> --------- Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 06:45:05 +0200 From: Michael Payne <[email protected]> Reply-To: [email protected] Subject: [USMA:54120] RE: Don't be a dunce! To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>I can only speak about the English language Wikipedia. Many English speaking nations use the comma as the decimal, South Africa is one, So do the French and probably most Europeans. It’s a cleaner way of writing and it works for the digits on the right side of the decimal. Claiming Americans like their freedom is the same as saying we’ll stick with American Customary because we’re free to. It does
not
help in international trade! We need standardisation and this is one standard recommended by NIST. Mike Payne On 14 Jul 2014, at 06:34, Harold_Potsdamer <[email protected]> wrote:Try checking an authoritative source, like the BIPM before insisting Americans has some sort of derogation based on their claimed exceptionalism. Here is a style guide from the US construction industry: https://www.wbdg.org/ccb/VA/VAMETRIC/guide.pdf Rules for Writing Numbers - Always use decimals, not fractions (write 0.75 g, not
¾g).
- Use a zero before the decimal marker for values less than one (write 0.45 g, not .45 g). - Use spaces instead of commas to separate blocks of three digits for any number over four digits (write 45 138 kg or 0.004 46 kg or 4371 kg). Note that this does not apply to the expression of amounts of money. - In the United States, the decimal marker is a period; in other countries a comma usually is used See also 5.3.4 from the NIST guide: http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP330/sp330.pdf Under what authority do you operate under that gives you the right to break the rules? Those who want to do things their way and think they are exceptional are the real dunces. FROM: [email protected] SENT: Sunday, 2014-07-13 22:51 TO: U.S. Metric Association[1] SUBJECT: [USMA:54114] RE: Don't be a dunce! Harold. Americans use commas or spaces. We love our freedom. ----- Message from Harold_Potsdamer <[email protected]> --------- Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 20:07:41 -0400 From: Harold_Potsdamer <[email protected]> Reply-To: [email protected] Subject: [USMA:54113] RE: Don't be a dunce! To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>Not only that, commas dividing thousands which should be spaces. FROM: [email protected] SENT: Sunday, 2014-07-13 14:26 TO: U.S. Metric Association[1] SUBJECT: [USMA:54111] RE: Don't be a dunce! No zeroes on the leading decimals? Tsk tsk tsk. :)-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [USMA:54110] Don't be a dunce! From: [email protected] Date: Sun, July 13, 2014 11:22 am To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Posted on Facebook and Twitter today: Don't be a dunce! http://MetricPioneer.com/Metrication-America[2] David Pearl www.MetricPioneer.com[3]
503-428-4917
----- End message from Harold_Potsdamer <[email protected]> ----- David Pearl www.MetricPioneer.com[3] 503-428-4917
----- End message from Michael Payne <[email protected]> ----- Links: ------ [1] mailto:[email protected] [2] http://metricpioneer.com/Metrication-America [3] http://www.metricpioneer.com/ David Pearl www.MetricPioneer.com 503-428-4917
