Dear Martin, Other than the article you have already referred to at: http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/Spelling_metre_or_meter.pdf I don't think that I can help you. When Noah Webster decided to corrupt the spelling of metre in the 1700s and early 1800s, he did so for his own commercial reasons as well as to meet the paranoia of the USA at that time.
Webster's success with his deception is now so widespread that it has become part of the culture of the USA and, for over 200 years, it restricted the population of the USA from accessing many valuable references from all other English speaking nations — no matter how superior these "foreign" books might be. It was only a little lie at the time but it has grown mightily. I hope you don't mind but I have copied your email on to the USMA maillist for their comments — their thoughts are always valuable. Cheers, Pat Naughtin Geelong, Australia On 2011/07/01, at 04:02 , Martin Bromley wrote: > Hello Pat, > > My company runs a site at http://www.degreedays.net/ that generates a > specialist type of temperature data called degree days. We're in the process > of building an API (Application Programming Interface), which will give other > programmers a way to get data out of our system without doing it manually > through the website interface. > > In our API we need to give programmers access to several measurements of > distance, like the elevation of a weather station above sea level. I had > decided that we should use the metres unit for these measurements. That was > an easy decision. > > What was not such an easy decision was deciding whether to spell it "metres" > or "meters"... > > I'm guessing you're not a programmer so I shall give you just a little > background. If we use "metres" in our API, we're forcing all programmers > that use our API to type "metres" in various places throughout their code. > And the thing with programming is that US spellings are the norm. Programmers > around the world are used to typing color instead of colour and center > instead of centre. It's like a standard of sorts. > > A couple of links that discuss this, for if you're interested: > > http://stackoverflow.com/questions/157807/gb-english-or-us-english > http://drabasablog.net/archives/post-133.html > > So the en_US convention for programming would encourage us to use "meters" in > our API (which is essentially a domain-specific language for programmers). > And that is tempting. > > But we are providing a scientific kind of data, so it seems to me that it's > important to be scientific in our measurements. And "meters" just doesn't > feel scientific. > > I came across your excellent PDF on the metres/meters debate and I found it > very useful. It helped give me the confidence to make the decision to settle > on "metres", shunning the en_US convention for software programs. > > Many thanks for putting that information together and writing it in such a > compelling way. > > Fingers crossed we don't change our mind tomorrow or get shouted at by angry > Americans after we launch this API and they're wondering why on earth we > spelt meters "wrong". > > Please don't feel the need to reply to this... Through running our Degree > Days.net site I know what it's like when random strangers email one long > tales out of the blue, when one doesn't really have time to respond. I just > wanted to say thanks. > > Best regards, > > Martin Bromley > http://www.degreedays.net/ Pat Naughtin LCAMS Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, see http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html Hear Pat speak at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lshRAPvPZY 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.
