A Metric Matter

[Buford T. Justice]

I am working on an article about the metric system for fun. I was wondering if you metric users might take a look at it and tell me what you think:

http://bit.ly/17A41BR

Thanks in advance!

[Touchtone]

I have had a quick look through the article & the only discrepancy I noticed was the litres to US gallons, where it says 1 litre equals 3.8 US gallons approx. While I am not sure of the US gallon to Imperial gallon ratio, I do know that 1 Imperial gallon equals 4.54609 litres.
Here in Australia we switched over to the metric system in 1974 but it took awhile for everything to be changed over. Car speedometers were in MPH for a while & distance signage also took time.
I was brought up on the Imperial system & I still do some of the conversions to get it straight in my head.
Perhaps a few more people will post some information as well.

[beteljuice]

Of course you have a fundamental problem .........

You even spell it differently to everyone else

The metre (meter in American English) ...

[DaveNZ]

I find it funny how you describe 20°C as a fairly cool day

[Buford T. Justice]

@Touchtone
Yes the definition here in the USA is ~3.79 L whereas the imperial value is ~4.546 L. We even have the dry gallon which is ~4.4 L (thankfully not used much anymore).

@beteljuice
Yup, lol. We Americans are just that damn stubborn!

@DaveNZ
LOL! Yeah 20 °C / 68 °F is kind of cool. Not cold but cool. My weather station says it is 90.0 °F outside right now. It is kind of hot.

[Buford T. Justice]

Speaking of American English vs. UK English, why do you guys say things like this:

"John fell out of his car and broke his hand. He was in hospital for a few hours."

In hospital? We would say:

"John fell out of his car and broke his hand. He was in the hospital for a few hours."

Here is another weird one:

"John was on holiday when he fell out of his car drunk and broke his hand."

Holiday(s) are national days to celebrate special dates and events instead of being some dude's day off. We would say:

"John was on vacation when he fell out of his car drunk and broke his hand."

[water01]

Please remember ours is the King's English and was around before your country was found, so we have the perogative to speak it as we wish .

Just kidding!! I think the phrase "two countries divided by a different language" springs to mind.

[beteljuice]

Vacation: see last part of Entymology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacation

Implied leaving somewhere vacant, holiday of course originally Holy Day.

The modern work ethic has required us to explain why we weren't where we normally would be ...
Isn't language wonderful !

[PaulMy]

It was some fun reading BTJ. I think a couple of typos/miscalculations... like Touchstone indicated, the "1 litre equals about 3.8 gallons" should likely be 1 gallon equals about 3.8 litres", and "there are 7.1 billion people on the Earth with a little over 316 million people living in the United States which is about 22.5% of the total population of Earth" with that population count the USA would be about 4.5% instead of 22.5%.

We are officially pretty well all metric in Canada that started in the late 1970s but there are still many imperial references by everyone including those born after 1970s... babies at birth are referred to as 6lbs 12oz, reimbursement for vehicle travel is paid as mileage, our football fields are not 100 metres but 110 yards, our lumber is 2x4s but actual dimension is in cm, our standard printer's paper is 8 1/2 x 11, and on and on...

Well done,
Paul

[beteljuice]

Errata: 299,792.458 km/h (better to be represented as 299,792,458 m/s)

km/h does not equal m/s !

Speed of Light is exactly 299,792,458 m/s (1,080,000,000 km/h)

[Buford T. Justice]

@PaulMy
Thanks I missed those. Corrections made.

[Buford T. Justice]

Errata: 299,792.458 km/h (better to be represented as 299,792,458 m/s)

km/h does not equal m/s !

Speed of Light is exactly 299,792,458 m/s (1,080,000,000 km/h)

Thanks for catching that. Correcting it now.

Actually wouldn't be 1,079,252,848.8 km/h?

299,792,458 m/s = 299,792.458 km/s

299,792.458 km/s * 60 = 17,987,547.48 km/m

17,987,547.48 km/m * 60 = 1,079,252,848.8 km/h

[franzliszt]

I enjoyed reading this paper, written in an interesting and relaxed style. I've often heard here in the UK, during a discussion about metrication that "The imperial system got the Americans to the moon, so it's good enough for me" This may or may not be true. I joined the sixth form (senior school US?) in 1959, and we were introduced to a new system by the education authority, the cgs system (centimetre, gram, second) which of course was very straightforward. Consequently, I feel capable of working in metric or imperial,

I believe the difference between the two lies in their relationship to day to day life. A good example is the litre. As a measure in a Pub for beer it is too large, half a litre is just too small and gives rise to those peculiarly shaped glasses which have the wrong aspect! I think that the temperature system that you grow up with is the one that stays with you for life. To me, the Fahrenheit scale almost speaks out the temperature, particularly between 50F and say 80F, it dictates exactly when to put on a jumper, wear a jacket etc. I also find that the imperial system is much more appropriate to my graphics work, due to the many different ways that the foot and the inch can be divided.

As has been mentioned elsewhere in this post, the difference between British English and American English is fascinating. I can never understand why American spellings didn't go the (whole hog ) and change some of the more peculiar words, rough = ruff, cough = coff?, instead of just minor changes typically colour = color. Nevertheless BTJ, an enjoyable resume, I think you should do a paper solely related to your observations regarding US vs British sentence construction...........by the way, I have a spare set of Whitworth ring spanners....

[sfws]

(deleted)

[mcrossley]

Tablet ingredients are normally in milligrams (mg), micrograms would be µg (Greek mu character)