Give them and inch...
HERE'S is a suggestion: when writing up your "Worthing Winter Wilderness" stories for this week's Herald, don't follow the example on page 18 of the previous week's paper which stated that, over a 12-hour period, "20cm of rain fell on Worthing".
The metric system is not yet the standard of measurement in Worthing and, in all probability, the majority of your readers can't immediately visualise what 20 centimetres means — and neither can you.
20cm is approximately eight inches.
So eight inches of rain fell on Worthing in 12 hours, did it? Amazing.
That's a quarter of a whole year's rainfall.
What your reporter meant to write was "20mm of rain" — but what she should have written was, of course, "three-quarters of an inch of rain."
Feet and inches rule — okay?
David Garnett
Ferring
Editor's note: Notwithstanding the mistake, the reporters should all know what 20cm looks like because, surprise, surprise, they were taught that in school.
The older hands also know because 1) We ought to, and 2) The newspaper pages we work on are measured not in inches but in centimetres.
Sorry, Mr Garnett, but that's a fact of life.
Having said that, when we mention metric measurements in the paper, the general rule is we should put the inches measurement in brackets.
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Weather for Worthing
Saturday 04 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 0 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 1 C to 4 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: South west
