Looking at a tape dispenser today (what, you don’t ever have slow days at work?), I noticed the following statistics:
I understand why the metric units are there. I even understand the use of , as a decimal. What I don’t understand is: What unit of measurement is indicated by “po”? I assume that it is some NAFTA-required “translation” of “in” into either French or Spanish, but I don’t know if it’s short for something or what.
But my hypothesis begs the question, why would Mexicans and/or Canadians need to have the “in” measurement translated when they measure using the metric measurements anyway?
Let me clarify. I’m clear on the fact that 1 po = 1 in. I’m asking if it’s short for something the way “in” is short for “inch” or if “po” is the correct name of the unit.
Still, this begs the question, why is there a French translation of an English measurement? Did the French ever measure using inches? Didn’t they invent the freaking metric system, for crying out loud?
Pouce (literally “thumb”) is an older French unit of measure a little bigger than an English inch (27.07 mm vs. 25.4 mm), but it has been obsolete in France since the metric system was introduced there (around 1800). More recently, it has been used to mean the same thing as the English inch. Canada didn’t adopt the metric system until the 1960s of 70s, and pouce may still have been still in use at that time, but I don’t really know. Just how old is this tape dispenser?
