On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 09:49:05 +0000 (UTC), "parr\(*"
wrote in message id
:
| the Hill (anyone?!) - and could
| only find it at a canadian site
| for £18.30. I asked them to mark
| For the weights we have to put it
| on machine and it stores the # in
| the computer.
Mistake No. 2:
In North America, the # (hash) symbol means pounds weight. We write
18 lbs,they write 18#. So you asked them to say 'under 18 lbs'.
But they shouldn't should they ? Perusing the net I discover that
Canada is a "metric country" which is seemingly disputed at:-
http://members.shaw.ca/gw.peterson/metrication.html
---------------------------
"How did this happen? Didn’t Canada convert to metric in the 1970s and
1980s? Thanks to government flip-flopping, consumer apathy, and
administrative stubbornness Canadian metrication has stalled far from
completion."
---------------------------
This is vastly different to Australia where metrication was
introduced very rapidly such that there is almost no use of imperial
measurements (although I still think of my height in feet and inches
the Australian passport insists on cm).
In Canada's case I would suggest that the answer might be
"francophobia" which is one of the reasons it took the United Kingdom
(and indeed Australia) so long to metricate. (I base this on
editorials in the Sydney Morning Herald from the 19th. Century where
metrication was being discussed but dismissed as something only the
French would contemplate and the French were mistrusted).
There would be resistance in Canada to anything metric in the English
speaking provinces of Canada and I quote from the site above..
---------------------------------------------------------
"In January 1983 two Toronto gas station owners, Jack Halpert and Ray
Christianson, were charged under the Weights and Measures Act for
selling gasoline by the imperial gallon. The two gas station owners
won their case in provincial court. While the decision was under
appeal by the Attorney General of Canada, Mark MacGuigan; Judy Erola,
Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affaris, the federal department
responsible for implementing the Weights and Measures Act, placed a
moratorium on the metrication of motor fuels, home furnishings, and
individually measured foods."
-----------------------------------------------------------
It's also a multi-lingual country BUT there are people known to
censor out the French from packets of cornflakes on the basis it that
it might corrupt their children.
Homework exercise:
Try the same request when writing to:
a. A Japanese Supplier
b. An Australian Supplier
I believe only a few people would be likely to order from Australia.
We are mainly importers not exporters. Australia however changed to
metric currency from pounds shillings and pence and the country still
has ties with the "old country" so the currency symbol is very
familiar. An Australian dollar is effectively 10 shillings and 20
shillings (10 cent pieces) still make a pound (two Australian
dollars). A five cent piece isn't a nickel. It's sixpence.
One day (real soon now) the United States of America being almost the
only country in the world not to contemplate metrication (apart from
the currency) will amend it's system of weights and measures. I would
like to mention that Australia still uses imperial for anything to do
with computers, which is I believe based on it being an American toy.