The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #104750 Message #2155421
Posted By: Rowan
22-Sep-07 - 11:37 PM
Thread Name: Folklore: Expressions lost/gained with SI measures
Subject: RE: Folklore: Expressions lost/gained with SI measures
G'day Q.
Just before reading your post I was looking at a whiteboard in an area used by an American colleague. High up in an out of the way bit is the following, highlighted and intended to be left there 'permanently";
A4: 11.67 " x 8.25"
The rest of us, having had to deal with A4 when metrication came in more than 30 years ago, now routinely use A4 (and even the others in the series, although A4 & A3 would 'cover' most users) and some even are familiar with B5 (the only commonly used one of the other series) and we swear under our breath at having to trawl through printer drivers and other computer settings to get rid of the "American Letter" and "American Legal" settings that are completely irrelevant to Oz. But you're right; no foolscap or quarto to be seen (although the book publishing trade still talks about octavo occasionally) and, who but a draughtsman remember the Whatman series?
BTW, those of us from Oz and old enough to be posting on "Now I'm 40" thread might still be able to think in terms of "stones" (14 lbs), cwt (112 lbs) and even tons (2400 lbs or 100 cwt), they've all gone out of conversational use. I haven't heard "stones" or "hundredweight" as a unit for at least 20 years and, while I hear "tons", it usually refers to Tonnes (1000 kg and 2200lbs, and not to be confused with "Short tons" which were 2000lbs). Various OH&S notions have reduced the weight of a cement bag (1 cwt, which I used to lump around as a labourer when a student) to something like (from memory) 40kg.
But, because I knew Americans still used Avoirdupois units for common weghts I'd always wondered about how/why they hadn't cottoned on to "stones".
Cheers, Rowan