Peter Bunclark scripsit:
> Well would you Americans consider stopping calling them English Units?
> It makes me cringe every time the Mars Climate Observer crash is blamed on
> `English Units'.
You'd probably cringe if you went to an American restaurant for breakfast
and heard the waiter ask the cook for "two toasted English". :-)
> We call the British equivalent Imperial Units, implying
> a definite historical context.
Their proper name (in U.S. government publications
and such) is "U.S. customary units". See
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._customary_units .
> And teach our kids SI units.
We teach SI units too, but most people forget them fairly quickly.
There are also practical problems: "Retrofitting metric sized wallboard
on old 16" spaced studs can be significantly difficult."
--
All Norstrilians knew what laughter was: John Cowan
it was "pleasurable corrigible malfunction". http://www.reutershealth.com
--Cordwainer Smith, _Norstrilia_ jcowan_at_reutershealth.com
Received on Wed Jun 04 2003 - 11:00:59 PDT