From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Thu May 19 2005 - 06:28:47 CDT
On 19/05/2005 04:04, Asmus Freytag wrote:
> At 05:18 AM 5/18/2005, Peter Kirk wrote:
>
>> The United States, Canada, and in part Mexico, are today the only
>> industrialized nations in which the ISO standard paper sizes are not
>> yet widely used.
>>
>>
>> Some of these paper sizes were a French standard as long ago as 1794!
>> The modern form of the system was introduced as a German standard in
>> 1922, and in most of Europe by the 1950's - ironically last of all in
>> France in 1967. So this is nothing to do with the "eurocrats" of the
>> European Union.
>
>
>
> The Napoleonic occupation of much of Europe certainly did a lot to
> spread many of these innovations across the continent. Presumably it's
> also part of the reason for the Anglo-Saxon resistance....
>
Yes, we British still resist such Napoleonic innovations as the metric
system and driving on the right, which rule the rest of Europe from
Calais to Baku, as Napoleon effectively did after imposing his Code on
the Russian Empire.
The French may well reject the new European Constitution because it
seems too Anglo-Saxon - and we may reject it because it seems too French!
But we did accept this paper size system, and in fact before the French did.
-- Peter Kirk peter@qaya.org (personal) peterkirk@qaya.org (work) http://www.qaya.org/ -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.322 / Virus Database: 266.11.12 - Release Date: 17/05/2005
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