On Tuesday 2003 November 11 16:18, Joseph B. Reid wrote: > I think I can explain the UKMA website's position. Lady Attlee, the > daughter-in-law of the late Prime Minister Clem Attlee, won born and > raised in France . She had no difficulty of mentally converting > centimetres into inches because inches never were a part of her native > culture. Hence she was a strong advocate of the centimetre Much > merriment in Britain was caused by a British Standards Association > publication which featured a picture of a bathing beauty with her vital > dimensions in millimetres.
While Anne's views have been taken into consideration, she speaks as an ordinary member of the UKMA. Pat Naughton's experiences notwithstanding, it has been the experience here in the UK that excessive zeal in using the millimetre has been a gift to our opponents. Part of the problem is that it can lead to people to believe that it confers an accuracy that isn't warranted, so something that was a foot gets converted to 305.8 mm, when the original value may have been accurate to a quarter-inch. It has been my experience that this happens when converted to mm, but conversion to centimetres is usually done to the nearest cm (or 0.5 cm). Such examples can be used to deliberately create an aura of complexity, and put people off learning. Our opponents are quite happy giving examples such as 'a 453.5924 g of flesh', but you never see them citing a kilogram as being 2.204623 lbs! What we are trying to do is counter the impression that centimetres (and, to a lesser extent, centilitres) are not part of SI. We're not trying to encourage their wider adoption in industry, simply recognising their validity. Two examples: back in 1995, photo processing started to show metric sizes. While continental practice is to give sizes such as 10 x 15 cm, here we frequently saw 101 x 152 mm. While the latter may be more accurate (and what is on packs of photographic paper) it doesn't help sell metric as being simpler. My partner recently received a plants catalogue. She said "what's 900 mm?". I said it's 30 cm, or about a foot. Her reply (and this is someone who was anti-metric before she met me!) was "why don't they SAY 30 cm?" So I think we need to strike a balance between what we say is recommended practice, and what is acceptable in everyday situations. I'll take this opportunity to announce the launch of the new UKMA Web site. It can be reached though the URL below or via www.ukma.org.uk. -- Chris KEENAN UK Metric Assoc: www.metric.org.uk
