That's amusing because, although we've been metric in Oz for many
years, a lot of 'stuff'' is in measurements clearly converted. Thus,
a lot of packaged foods seem to be something like 418g instead of
500g (obviously a pound) and building materials are all 1.8m and so
on (still in 3ft increments). I love it when I go into a corporate
car park and find myself confronted with a speed limit sign of '8km' !
There appear to be a range of factors, such as existing machinery,
existing structural requirements, habit, resistance and good old
corporate idiocy but given that most people under thirty here
wouldn't know what a pound or an inch were if they were mauled by
one, it does seem strangely persistent. Personally, being a commie
pinko anarchist tree hugger, I blame American Corporate Hegemony, of
course. :-)
AndrewF
On 07/09/2005, at 6:12 AM, Piers Hemy wrote:
> Well, you could always compromise - as has been done here. The
> roadwarning
> signs are still in imperial "yardage", but are placed, for example
> 330 yards
> (990 feet) before the hazard, be it ice, animals crossing the road, a
> T-junction. Uniformly. Strange? No, 990 feet = 300 meters, but I
> guess we
> aren't supposed to notice.
>
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