you see, those top few things, not metric. they should be talking about millimeters, centimeters and meters. and i'm pretty sure liters is the metric measure you'd use instead of pints and quarts.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
metric fail
i saw this sign at work today, and it started to trouble me. i don't know who made, or what purpose it exactly is for, but it's not right.
you see, those top few things, not metric. they should be talking about millimeters, centimeters and meters. and i'm pretty sure liters is the metric measure you'd use instead of pints and quarts.
you see, those top few things, not metric. they should be talking about millimeters, centimeters and meters. and i'm pretty sure liters is the metric measure you'd use instead of pints and quarts.
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7 comments:
interesting. the chart could be labeled "conversions" and it would be fine. otherwise, you are correct about the top three NOT being metric. hope your mom/wife wasn't the one who made this chart.
That's.. unfortunate.
Further proof that the US needs to get on this metric shit. Even Canada switched to the metric system and well, it's Canada.
See, but the sign is right in the sense that metrics could refer to the definition as a standard of measure in general.
Exampled by educational metrics.
adam,
while your example works, technically, it fails the test of general usage. i am willing to bet $20 that the person who made the sign was not using metrics in the sense of standard of measure, but rather in the sense of 'these are metric conversions.'
when we americans refer to metrics, as you know, we are generally referring to the metric system, as opposed to the imperial unit. if they had intended metric as any unit of measurement, the sign could also have 90% = A. had they included that, i might be inclined to agree with you.
It might fail general usage, but you said you saw it at work...an educational institution, where the usage might be more common.
did you forget where i work? i'm doubting anyone is going with arcane usages. i'm figuring it was for a math class and they wanted a visual reference for conversions being frequently used.
My 5th graders started to prefer the metric units for length when they learned about decimeters. At first they were frustrated because they thought metric units of length jumped straight from centimeters to meters. They wanted something in between. Now they're happy.
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