Talk:Canadian units

Article start

Gave this article a start. Needs a lot more work. There didn't seem to be anywhere where we could find all the canadian measures, as well as the french names. It would be nice to have the history if anyone had any information. The ones for land in quebec are not considered "canadian measurements" by the weights and measures act. So I left them out. That should be its own article maybe.

US equivalents are worked out using 1.201, and rounded off to the nearest unit to reflect the significant digits in this number. For example, minums are not used in the gallon conversion since a minum is less than .001 gallons.

It is not a mistake that it says that quart in french is "pinte". That is just how it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexwebjitsu (talk • contribs) 23:18, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I've redone the US equivalents using {{convert}}. Thus we are now using exact conversion factors with conversions rounded to four significant figures after the conversion (as opposed to the use of a four-significant-figure conversion factor from the onset, something which can lead to error). I've also changed the conversions from strings of units (e.g. 1 quart 6 ounces 3 drams and 27 minums) to single units (e.g. 38.43 US fl oz). I believe the latter better reflects modern usage so will make more sense to a general twenty-first century audience. Jɪmp 07:40, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Jimp: Here are the issues with the way you have decimalised the us measures. Not all canadian units are written in terms of the us unit with the same name. So one can't see easily that a canadian pint is more than a us pint. The main issue is that most of those units are not actually used in modern times (mina and drams for example). I think the following would be the closest to modern usage: -using decimal fractions of ounces instead of mina -always grouping all complete pints rather than writing things like 19oz. (this is not done all the time, but often) -never grouping quarts if leaving out an odd pint: 1 pint, 1 quart, 3 pints, 2 quarts, 5 pints, 3 quarts, 7 pints, 1 gallon (very similar concept to 1/8, 1/4, 3/8, 1/2, 5/8, 3/4, 7/8 ) The table will look like this: gallon - 1 US fl gal & 1 US fl pt & 9.73 US fl pt quart - 1 US quart & 6.43 US fl oz pint - 1 US fl pt & 3.22 US fl oz gill - 4.804 US fl oz fluid ounce - .9608 US fl oz fluid dram - .1201 US fl oz

But the '&'s can be replaced by whatever.

Another option with some pros and some cons would be to always use the us unit with the same name, and decimal fractions of it. This will allow readers to clearly see that all the canadian ones up to ounce are smaller and all the canadian ones after that are more. I am going to try to change it to the second option right now, and that will at least alert everybody that I am having this discussion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexwebjitsu (talk • contribs) 01:09, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

That table

Is there a good reason for using a giant table to fill out the entire article? Using tables for laying out entire pages (as opposed to genuinely tabular information) goes against every web/html manual of style (though not specifically wikiedpia's, which doesn't, afaik, say anything either way on the issue). It seems to me that the huge amount of horizontal white space created by having it all in one table actually works to make the page much harder to read. Can someone give me a good reason not to edit the page to split the table up? I also think it would be helpful to create headers within the page, much like almost every single other well-developed page on weights and measures has. Rhialto (talk) 16:19, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I've split the table up under sections. How's it look now? Jɪmp 17:41, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

That's a distinct improvement. Some of the tables still seem to be oddly stretched horizontally though. I think it's teh width=xx% tags in the table that are causing that issue. Rhialto (talk) 18:00, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Delete 'em if you think it would look better without. I'd stuck them in there so as to keep each table aligned with the next, e.g., the French name column of the area table is directly below the French name column of the length table. Jɪmp 19:25, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, with a bit of shuffling we might be able to have the cake and eat it too ... let me get back to you on it in a few hours ... I've gotta sleep. Jɪmp 19:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, how's it looking now? Jɪmp 04:52, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Unbold move

Per MOS: more later. Jɪmp 04:57, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Huh? Per WP:MOS#First sentences, the article title is the subject of the first sentence and should be bolded in the text. I have reverted your reversion, but will not revert further. Please discuss. -- Flyguy649 ^talk 05:28, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry about that. I had to run without fully explaining why I'd reverted your edit. According to the text, the official term would simply be Canadian units rather than Canadian units of measurement. Therefore there the title of the article is not the name of the thing. The second bulleted point in the section you link to states as follows.

If the topic of an article has no name and the title is merely descriptive—such as Electrical characteristics of a dynamic loudspeaker—the title does not need to appear verbatim in the main text; if it does, it is not in boldface.

Although it be not the correct name of the topic in question the title Canadian units of measurement certainly does describe the topic. However, mere descriptions are not bolded. That's the reasoning behind my unbolding.

Of course, there is a better solution with which we should both be satisfied. Let's move the article to its legal name. Jɪmp 07:13, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I thought about it a bit more, and I agree the current title is descriptive. The title should probably be something like "The horribly complex usage of units of measurement in Canada". Wait, that doesn't help. The bold isn't really important, though. -- Flyguy649 ^talk 15:47, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to bother the Canadians. It just means that Canadians are a very smart breed of people to be able to handle three systems of measurement in two different languages-- maintenant c'est bon. Rumor has it, that the ones from Belleville, Ontario are the smartest of all and the smartest ones from there left for Detroit many years earlier. —— MJCdetroit ^(yak) 16:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)