It is good of you to promote metric height numbers.
However, I do not like centimeter.
I want schools to stop teaching and using centimeter.
I also want schools to stop teaching inch-pound numbers.
So, I want height to be in millimeters.
What is it with the anti-centimeter prejudice that many people have on this
group ?
Just because mm are more appropriate for nearly all industrial use doesn't mean the humble cm
doesn't have a role. To place cm alongside inch-pound as in the above paragraph is way over the
top, and to try and pretend that that units between kilo and milli don't exist is to miss out on a
huge advantage of the use of metric prefixes: the ability to scale the unit to the most appropriate
size (and to advocate not teaching a unit that is not only officially recognized but is in wide use
internationally simply because purists have a dislike of them is to recommend leaving holes in young
people's education).
The fact is that cm *are* the most appropriate unit for people's height. If you don't like using
cm, then quote your height in meters (which is effectively 'hidden centimeters' as you will
typically quote it to two decimal places, i.e. centimeters). Thus the centimeter is the unit that
is closest to the required precision for people's height. It also gives a nice manageable range of
whole numbers.
My height is 174 cm or 1.74 m. If I am writing it down, I may write '1.74 m', but in saying it, I
will say "one seventy four" without any units, which can be understood as one hundred seventy four
centimeters or 1 meter plus 74 centimeters.
Quoting height in millimeters is simply plain stupid - height is never expressed with that
precision, as something as simple as a haircut will change your height. People who insist on using
mm for height are like people who are so impressed with a screwdriver as a tool, that they think it
can be used for everything (whereas a less generally useful tool such as a hammer would be more
appropriate for *some* applications). I doubt very much you will see mm being used for height in
countries where metric is the system used. Also, using mm for height gives an unnatural feeling,
rather like the putative "New York 96.56 km" sign that anti-metric activists insist would replace a
more natural "60 mile" sign.
As for the choice of using meters or centimeters, I would point at that the use of centimeters has
the advantage of yielding a whole integer without the need for decimal places -- something that is
often (quite correctly) pointed out by people recommending the advantages of mm over inches or
centimeters in other applications such as engineering drawings. Why not apply the same logic here ?
Use the unit that is best suited to the range and precision required by the
application.
Tom Wade