Use of metrics
Sir, — I find Professor Gregson’s attitude unattractive and his “international communication” theory ridiculous. In his first letter, he referred to “the great number” of human blanks who have always had trouble with numbers.” He would throw these in the deep ena of universal metrication and make a shambles of internal communication. Man, it seems, is made for metrics and metrics is a jealous god. Professor Gregson would like whips and scorpions to suppress all mention of imperial measures. Internal metrication is no step forward; at best, it is a bothersome, floundering step sideways and totally essary. “If vou want to talk to the modern world . . ■ you just have to adjust to change.” i.e. metrication. The devastating counterexample to this implication is that internal imperial measures have never been a bar to our international communication. As for village green,” British and United States technologies have got on very successfully without metrics. Yours, etc., „ . . rJ. DUGDALE. November 24, 1979 Sir, — Mr Harman (November 26) is quite right to observe that the version or fb
the metric system which our late and unfulfilled Metric Advisory Board wished on us is incomplete. There are, quite sensibly, colloquial measures in the metric system as used in Europe. For example, in Vienna one always asked for a “quarter” of wine in a restaurant, not 250m15; in Sweden at the delicatessen I always asked for and got a “hecto” of smoked salmon, never 100 grams. I cannot recall having a glass of beer labelled 350m1, but “35c1” is common enough. This correspondence started by remarking that the M.A.B. did a half-baked job of conversion, perhaps because of the influence of politicians. See how real people in the real outside world use their metric system, and learn from them, not from boards, committees, and people who left Europe years ago when things were different. — Yours, etc.
R. A. M. GREGSON. November 26, 1979. [This correspondence is now closed. — Editor.]
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Press, 27 November 1979, Page 16
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324Use of metrics Press, 27 November 1979, Page 16
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