Ezra: The REAL problem is the Luddite British government policy, coupled with a press/media that refuses to move with the times. I believe that the British public is well ahead of both government and media in this respect, but are held back. I give a few recent examples to support my views.
Last Wednesday I attended my monthly Probus meeting, in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, some 300 km from London. (Probus is for retired Professional and Business people.) We had a talk by the local Greenthumb franchise rep. He gave his talk in almost exclusively metric units (e.g. lawn sizes in m², etc), at which point I winced, thinking that my fellow Probians would not like this. Occasionally he reverted to imperial when he realised he was talking to a group of people with a median age probably north of 70. He needn’t have bothered. Nearly all the questions from this audience, where the questioner made reference to a quantity, were in metric units (including that from one questioner, a retired engineer, who used mm in describing the size of a discolouration patch in his grass). My neighbour (mid 60s) talks only in km when referring to his cottage in Cyprus and how far to the airport, etc. The convenience store where I buy my Sunday paper recently suggested that I must live no more than 500 m away, and that I could get the paper delivered for free (I measured it and the distance is about 550 m). And so on. I do think that the British people, as the late Pat Naughtin once suggested, somehow feel a bit embarrassed in talking in metric units if they do not know their audience/listener is also comfortable in using metric. Get over this obstacle, and the general public will be seen to be leading the way. All we need to do now is somehow harness this mind-set into forcing the government and media into catching up, instead of simply allowing such policies to sabotage the future of this country. John F-L From: ezra.steinb...@comcast.net Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2014 9:12 PM To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:53964] A Very British Mess The UKMA has coined the term "a very British mess" for the "metric muddle" (as they also say) in the UK right now. Little did I realize how bad things actually were until I saw this post on Metric Views (http://metricviews.org.uk) from which I pass along the key excerpt (as a comment to the Old Habits Die Hard post): [I]t is quite normal for UK people to use kg for weight gain, however weight LOSS is measured in stones, get it right please!! Kg for gain, stones for loss, right? Distances of less than a few metres are given in feet, thereafter in metres. Longer distances are of course in miles. Lengths of less than 30 cm are in inches until it is down to 3 cm, then it is OK to use mm so long as it is compared to a finger nail or something. Degrees Celsius (centigrade to me) is used in winter, Fahrenheit in summer, that makes it all sound better. Snowfall is in cm up to about 2.5 cm, then in inches or even feet if it is in USA. Flood water is always in feet, it sounds better then metres. Tide height is metres as is normal water depth, unless it is very deep, then feet sound better. What a shame they've let things slide so badly over there. If we ever get started in a serious way here, let's hope we follow the good examples of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc. instead. -- Ezra No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2014.0.4592 / Virus Database: 3964/7677 - Release Date: 06/14/14
