There was a large grass fire north east of Saskatoon yesterday. I was quite surpised that the local TV news that the fire was "1 km by 2 km in size" and "missed some buildings by 100 metres" on the supper hour (18:00) news program. It would have been more common for them to say "500 acres" or "about a section" (1 section = 1 sq. mi.) and "missed by 300 feet". As near as I could figure the Fire Marshal, whom they interviewed on the late (22:00) news, gave these dimesions earlier on in the day. He gave the same metric dimenions in the interview. The media here give no thought to what units they use when they're reporting. If some source uses Imperial or American, they use Imperial or American. If someone says metric, they use metric. Most media outlets here in Saskatoon have assured me that metric is the preferred system for reporting, yet I suspect that few reporters bother to look at the manual. greg >>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 2000-10-18 12:32:56 >>> On Wed, 18 Oct 2000 09:54:26 -0600, Gregory Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Here's the CBC web news. Note the exclusive use of km in the article. > >Maybe this is something you can pass onto the BBC? > >greg > >http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/view?/news/2000/10/17/train_001017 Today's reports threw up some interesting items. Firstly, I was very pleased to see the Independent giving the statistics for the Intercity 225 entirely in metric (though the speed was only reported as 115 mi/h). Dimensions are given in metres to 3 decimal places, but most pleasing/surprising was the fact it gave the power as 4530 kW, with no mention of HP. the front page story (probably available at http://www.independent.co.uk) included "Steven Wilson, 22, was cutting grass in a park 20 metres from the track...'came to a halt about 40 metres from me'". Later: "The rest of the carriage...lay 200 metres further back..." Unfortunately, among this was also the phrase "careering a few hundred yards", and the p3 report used "300 yards south of Hatfield station". http://www.independent.co.uk/news/UK/Transport/2000-10/derailed181000.shtml http://www.independent.co.uk/news/UK/Transport/2000-10/investigation181000.shtml More surprisingly, the Daily Mail (a right-wing, reactionary tabloid, slightly up-market of the Sun) referred to the name deriving from its speed in km/h, and actually used metres in one of the graphics! Chris -- Metrication information: http://www.metric.org.uk/ UK legislation, EC Directives, Trading Standards links and more
