In the last few days, I came across two units of measure that are non-standard, even by the poor standards of so-called U.S. customary units.
First, there were the cherry tomatoes at Trader Joe's. Trader Joe's own brand was in a 16 oz clear plastic container, which I believe included a parenthetical 454 g. A competing brand, also in a clear plastic container, was marked "1 dry pint" and had no metric equivalent. Even if one knows that a U.S. Pint (Dry) is 550.6 mL, how on earth does one do a price comparison with 454 g? (Don't answer that; it's a rhetorical question.) Second, there was an article in a monthly newsletter (not a current one) of one of the Sacramento area cities, in which the installation of water meters was discussed. The unit of measure for the meters was ccf (hundreds of cubic feet). For the baseline usage (the volume above which they charge for consumption), the article converted the value to gallons. Just imagine if they (the water board) had the common sense to measure and charge in either liters or cubic meters. In the former case, the customers could visualize their usage in terms of 2 L soft drink bottles or 1 L imported mineral water bottles. (Although they could also visualize it in terms of 1 gallon milk jugs, they'd have to remember the [non-integral, non-multiple of 10]conversion factor from ccf.) I know the country is making some progress in the area of metrication, but there are some areas where there's still a long way to go. Bill Potts Roseville, CA http://metric1.org [SI Navigator--now registering 100 071 hits] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michael Payne Sent: Friday, November 09, 2007 19:42 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:39696] Re: metric conversion I'd warrant this happens thousands of times every day here in the U.S. No one understands metric, but even less, people don't understand inch pound units. Michael Payne ----- Original Message ----- From: "Patrick Moore" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, 09 November 2007 20:31 Subject: [USMA:39695] metric conversion > You will get a smile out of this true-life story. > > Today as I walked through my company's mail room, I noticed the shipping > clerk peering at a computer screen with the banner "Metric Conversion." I > immediately stopped to watch her convert pounds to kilograms for some > foreign destination. But no! She was converting pounds to ounces, and a > web > site was helping her do the math. > > "If you just used kilograms," I pointed out, "you could do the math in > your > head." >
