Brendan's Journal

First real entry!
OK, so I've finally figured out that the best way to get me to actually write stuff here is to be drunk. Tonight I'm drinking my honorary shot for Johnny Cash. As a result, this pretty random entry:

Pet Peeve of the day: Journalists who convert units without mentioning that they're doing so.

I've noticed this in the newspapers a lot recently. It's sloppy, and I hate it. While articles dealing in natural contexts can be excused somewhat , I HATE it when this is done when talking about legalistically defined values. I can't remember a specific example right now, so I'll make up one that illustrates what I'm talking about. A typical example might be, in writing an article about France's highways: "Speed limits on the freeways (or "Autoroutes") in France are posted at 80.78 mph."

Arrrgh! No, there's a distinct difference between posting something at 130 kph and 80.78 mph! It's misleading to suggest that a statutory value has no tie to the units it was originally designed for. (Actually, now I seem to remember that the example I'm thinking of had something to do with the definition of a maritime or some other treaty boundary, obviously originally written in kilometers, but expressed in miles.) In any case, the ambiguity could be entirely eliminated by just saying something along the lines of, "Speed limits on the freeways (or "Autoroutes") in France are posted at 130 kilometers per hour (80.78 mph)." Is that too much to ask?

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