Isn't "US Colonial" an oxymoron?
John F-L
----- Original Message -----
From: <mech...@illinois.edu>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <usma@colostate.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2011 9:10 PM
Subject: [USMA:50142] Re: 'Words' and their impact on metrication in the USA
Pierre,
Perhaps the CIPM and CIPM will add the bit and shannon, and other IT names
and prefixes at some time in the future.
Again, I like the term "colonial" units or "US Colonial" units, to avoid
confusion with "British Colonial" units from nations other than USA, e.g.
units from India.
(Is the misleading reminder of "US Customary" (USC) a problem for you?)
Gene.
---- Original message ----
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:13:49 -0400
From: Pierre Abbat <p...@phma.optus.nu>
Subject: [USMA:50139] Re: 'Words' and their impact on metrication in the
USA
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <usma@colostate.edu>
On Tuesday 22 March 2011 10:30:15 mech...@illinois.edu wrote:
Bob, Tim, and Ron,
Here is an even better acronym for units "Outside the SI" (OSI).
OSI is shorter than USC, and shorter than inch-pound. Even if, by a
typo
error, OSI appears as 0SI (The zero "0 " is directly above O on most
keyboards.) it still conveys the same "0utside SI" meaning, and OSI can
be
construed to exclude the units isted in Table 10 and Table 11 of NIST SP
811, on Page 11, such as erg, dyne. gauss, torr, kgf, calorie, etc. as
"not
accepted for use with the SI by this Guide" SP 811.
Outside the SI also includes units of quantities that the SI has no unit
for,
such as the bit and the shannon (which are the same size, but units of
information capacity and information). If I buy a hard drive, I want to
know
both its width (in millimeters) and its information capacity.
For the collection of units including the US gallon, the foot, and the
pound,
I prefer the term "colonial units". That distinguishes the US gallon from
the
UK gallon (an imperial unit) and excludes the SI units except that of time
(the second is used with feet just as with meters).
Pierre
--
The Black Garden on the Mountain is not on the Black Mountain.
