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blatherskiteIn corresponding with a friend about my novel Jester, the question was raised about why I'd chosen to use "British" units rather than metric units (e.g., pounds rather than kilograms).
Until that moment, I'd never really considered this, other than to assume it was something I'd unconsciously internalized. I'm a member of one of the last generations of Canadians who was educated bilingually, in both imperial and metric units; now, Canada is almost exclusively metric. Plus, I work all day long in metric units (SI, the "système internationale") in the scientific editing that I do, so metric is where I'm instantly comfortable. But since metric was only just getting started when I was going through grade school, I still think more readily in imperial units about some things.
So I pondered a bit, and noted that as a general rule of thumb (i.e., undoubtedly with many exceptions), writers tend to use imperial units almost exclusively in fantasies, but switch to metric for science fiction. If you're immersed in either genre, you simply internalize this writing convention and adopt it without much thought, unless you're deliberately trying to invent weird words to add a touch of unfamiliarity to the writing.
Imperial seems to be used by fantasists both for historical reasons (the aforementioned genre convention, plus the fact that most of the English-language fantasy we grew up with had its roots in the British Isles)* and practicality (most British and American writers and readers are more familiar with imperial than metric units). In contrast, science fiction writers use metric because it sounds more techy and modern, and provides distancing from the fantasy convention of imperial units. Again, this convention is internalized.
* It's amusing, but irrelevant, to note that many fantasies deal with the notion of empires, thus inevitably use "imperial units". In fact, there's a whole sub-genre of science fiction called space opera that frequently deals with large space empires, yet doesn't use imperial units. But I digress...
All this is fair and reasonable, particularly if you share my belief that 95% of the best writing goes unnoticed, passing directly from eyes to brain, and the remaining 5% is deliberately intended to trip up the eyes and make the reader pause a moment, pay attention, and try to figure out what just happened. Under that approach, sticking with the familiar genre conventions means using units that won't cause readers to pause and think—or worse yet, go to Google to find out what a unit means.* They just read, absorb the description, and move on.
* Cool tip: Google lets you type a phrase such as "10 hectares in acres" (minus the quotes) in the search field, and will return the actual conversion as its first search result.
Science fiction writers often get the metric units wrong—often egregiously so. It happens so often that most days, I just groan and bleep out the error, like Linus (from the Charlie Brown comics) used to do with Russian names while reading The Brothers Karamazov. But like anything else we do as writers, we owe our readers the courtesy of doing the job right. Lazy shortcuts such as substituting metres for feet without thinking through the change in meaning is just plain sloppy work, and that sloppiness is often reflected in other aspects of the work. Writing is a discipline like any other, and benefits from a degree of rigor. Getting the details right in one area tends to help one get them right in other areas.
Until that moment, I'd never really considered this, other than to assume it was something I'd unconsciously internalized. I'm a member of one of the last generations of Canadians who was educated bilingually, in both imperial and metric units; now, Canada is almost exclusively metric. Plus, I work all day long in metric units (SI, the "système internationale") in the scientific editing that I do, so metric is where I'm instantly comfortable. But since metric was only just getting started when I was going through grade school, I still think more readily in imperial units about some things.
So I pondered a bit, and noted that as a general rule of thumb (i.e., undoubtedly with many exceptions), writers tend to use imperial units almost exclusively in fantasies, but switch to metric for science fiction. If you're immersed in either genre, you simply internalize this writing convention and adopt it without much thought, unless you're deliberately trying to invent weird words to add a touch of unfamiliarity to the writing.
Imperial seems to be used by fantasists both for historical reasons (the aforementioned genre convention, plus the fact that most of the English-language fantasy we grew up with had its roots in the British Isles)* and practicality (most British and American writers and readers are more familiar with imperial than metric units). In contrast, science fiction writers use metric because it sounds more techy and modern, and provides distancing from the fantasy convention of imperial units. Again, this convention is internalized.
* It's amusing, but irrelevant, to note that many fantasies deal with the notion of empires, thus inevitably use "imperial units". In fact, there's a whole sub-genre of science fiction called space opera that frequently deals with large space empires, yet doesn't use imperial units. But I digress...
All this is fair and reasonable, particularly if you share my belief that 95% of the best writing goes unnoticed, passing directly from eyes to brain, and the remaining 5% is deliberately intended to trip up the eyes and make the reader pause a moment, pay attention, and try to figure out what just happened. Under that approach, sticking with the familiar genre conventions means using units that won't cause readers to pause and think—or worse yet, go to Google to find out what a unit means.* They just read, absorb the description, and move on.
* Cool tip: Google lets you type a phrase such as "10 hectares in acres" (minus the quotes) in the search field, and will return the actual conversion as its first search result.
Science fiction writers often get the metric units wrong—often egregiously so. It happens so often that most days, I just groan and bleep out the error, like Linus (from the Charlie Brown comics) used to do with Russian names while reading The Brothers Karamazov. But like anything else we do as writers, we owe our readers the courtesy of doing the job right. Lazy shortcuts such as substituting metres for feet without thinking through the change in meaning is just plain sloppy work, and that sloppiness is often reflected in other aspects of the work. Writing is a discipline like any other, and benefits from a degree of rigor. Getting the details right in one area tends to help one get them right in other areas.
Imperialism and units of measurement
Date: 2009-11-26 02:12 am (UTC)I'm the guilty party, but I take exception to the assertion that science fiction writing in English normally uses SI units. I read a fair number of mostly US-based SF stories every month, and a disappointing number of them still use Imperial units, leaving me confused when the item under discussion comes in gallons. Are we talking Imperial gallons or US (wine) gallons? At least a litre/liter is the same size everywhere.
OTOH, it would make sense for a future empire on or derived from Earth to use SI so as to avoid conversion problems from one place to another. Such an Earth empire would not include the USA or Liberia, possibly Myanmar (Burma), at some far future date, assuming it's not centered in Beijing. In the USA, we will give up our yardsticks when the Government pries them from our cold, dead fingers. The UK's transition to SI has been nearly as dismal; 19 years later they still sell petrol by the Imperial gallon and have distance and speed limit signs in miles. I used to joke with my fellow expats that if their country ever decided to switch driving to the right-hand side of the road, they'll do it on alternate Tuesdays, on north-south routes only, for the first 20 years.