Who are we trying to convince, Americans? Are there still Aussies and Brits who need convincing too? I think perhaps national versions are needed. I think listing a lot of old words that Americans have never used weakens the argument. It is too easy to discount half the list and say, "Hey, it's not that bad." On the metric side, perhaps a note that conversions are approximate should be added. For US measure, I would show the cup as 240 mL, and 240 g. I would show the Tablespoon as 15 mL. If 15 mL is too rounded, use 14.8 mL, but 14.787 mL implies a pretty silly level of precision in the kitchen (although the exact value has several more figures.) I would also use American spelling or use symbols. On the old volume list, I would add dry pint, and dry quart, and replace tins with cans (in US usage, a can is sealed and can be opened once, a tin is reclosable). I would then strike everything except bushels, cups, fluid ounces, gallons, pecks, pints, quarts, tablespoons, teaspoons. Perhaps a note that the same words have different meanings in the UK and Australia. Oh, don't forget the stick of butter. :) On the weight list, I would only keep av. oz and pound, optionally grain and hundredweight, but I've never seen either in a recipe. On oven temperature, only degrees Fahrenheit is used here.
--- On Wed, 9/23/09, Pat Naughtin <pat.naugh...@metricationmatters.com> wrote: From: Pat Naughtin <pat.naugh...@metricationmatters.com> Subject: [USMA:45880] Re: History of Units To: "U.S. Metric Association" <usma@colostate.edu> Cc: "U.S. Metric Association" <usma@colostate.edu> Date: Wednesday, September 23, 2009, 5:05 AM Dear Teran, This is only a first draft but perhaps this is what you had in mind for a Cooking Poster. I would appreciate any comments. By the way, I would see this as appropriate for a different audience to the poster that I published at http://metricationmatters.com/docs/SIMetricUnitsVsUSAMeasures.pdf which, by the way, I have edited to reflect changes suggested by USMA mail list writers. Cheers, Pat Naughtin Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, that you can obtain from http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html PO Box 305 Belmont 3216, Geelong, Australia Phone: 61 3 5241 2008 Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA. Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST, and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com for more metrication information, contact Pat at pat.naugh...@metricationmatters.com or to get the free 'Metrication matters' newsletter go to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter to subscribe. On 2009/09/23, at 02:44 , Teran McKinney wrote: I personally thought the point was to confuse the reader with the historic units. I like it they way it is, but I might suggest adding something with a more practical and applicable note, like volume measurement for cooking. Almost anyone can figure out how clumsy it is, especially if a recipe was compared to the metric system. It should probably be reinforced that there are metric measuring tools though, for those who are unsure.
