Forget metric American football! I cannot foresee problems converting any
sport other than football to SI, as Soccer (International Football) has always
had difficult metric measures for dimensions created in yards. But American
football has two almost impossible barriers to conversion.
1. If we could convert all specifications from yards to meters, it would be
hard to compare past performances with 10 yards for a first down to 10 meters
or to use 9 meter measures as the qualification for a first down.
2. If "ten yards" became 10 meters, no stadium in the NFL, and probably few
stadia in the college ranks could accommodate a 120 meter by 50 meter field.
Maintaining yards as a football measure may have to stay for ever, and to my
mind, it wouldn't matter. I wouldn't care if horse racing kept their furlongs,
as long as the total race length is stated in meters. Moving "quarter mile"
posts to 400 meters would be no harder than the conversion of running tracks
thirty years ago.
Nonetheless, I think that the use of "millimeter" as a term of very short
distance is no small event. If this time it doesn't move into the U.S. public
consciousness, the next use will.
A. Kimbrough Sherman
Associate Professor
Dept. of Information Systems
and Operations Management
Loyola College in Maryland
4501 N. Charles Street
Baltimore 21210
410.617.2460 Fax.2118
>>> "Ziser, Jesse" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 9/27/2008 10:21 PM >>>
This does not surprise me.
I think people who grew up in the United States and were taught metric
alongside WOMBATs sometimes
kind of mentally mix the two into one set of units. They see metric units as
filling in the
gaps. "centimeter" is sometimes (uncommonly) used in conversation to mean
"about a half-inch",
and millimeters are (more commonly) used for smaller lengths just because the
US "system" doesn't
provide a small enough unit. Speaking in "32nds of an inch" or some such
verbose nonsense just
isn't worth consuming the extra joules.
I've said it before: I really do believe most Americans know more metric than
they think they do.
--- James Frysinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> With a bit over 2 min left in the third quarter and just after a
> reviewed call on a possible safety, the ball was placed "one millimeter
> from the goal line", according to the lead announcer on the ESPN broadcast.
>
> Ironically, a penalty backed the ball back up into the end zone
> resulting in a call of a safety against Indiana and in favor of Michigan
> State.
>
> That's my first observation of metric units being used in American
> football. Yep, she said "one millimeter".
>
> Jim
>
> --
> James R. Frysinger
> 632 Stony Point Mountain Road
> Doyle, TN 38559-3030
>
> (H) 931.657.3107
> (C) 931.212.0267
>
>
