Searching for standardz
Playing about with the nonlinear conversion in units I note that it supports the conversion of shoe-sizes between US and European sizes. No apparent support for UK sizes, so I had a quick hunt around on the net for an algorithm. After half an hour of looking at inconsistent conversion charts,
I think I’d rather UK shoe sizes just went away.
Of course, it’s nothing compared to the US, which apparently ended up with 2 systems: the “standard” (FIA) scale, and the “common” scale (more often used). Luckily Americans are hardy, and can cope with this kind of craziness without wimping-out and adopting metric scales.
I think you can mostly get away with just using the European sizes in the UK these days, anyway.
I’ve always assumed all shoe-sizes were derived from some secret shoe-maker voodoo algorithm, but actually the measurement for Euro-sizes is the inner-length of the shoe in “Paris Points” which are 2/3 cm. Now there might be a good historical reason for this obfuscation (avoiding decimals? vanity?) but if you’re going to standardise on a metre-derived scale, why not use something familiar like, oh I don’t know, mm?
Wouldn’t it be good if there existed an international standard for shoe sizes? Something that was really easy to convert to-and-from a conventional metric unit such as metres?
Well, hurrah, such a standard exists. It’s called “Mondopoint” and is derived from the length of the foot (and optionally also the width) in either mm or cm. I say either, because it’s not really clear which.
Do a search for mondopoint on the web, you’ll mostly see sites selling ski-boots and skates. Many give their sizes in double-figures, e.g. “27″, and many as “270″. Some sites explicitly claim mondopoints are in cm, some claim mm. It’s not a big problem, right? When you’re out buying shoes, I’m sure it would be simple to work out which is which. Systems that run without a human capable of spotting a factor-of-ten error could use some kind of windowing code.
Yep, that’s right, a relatively new standard and you already need to bolt on a Y2k-style kludge.
I’m curious to know which is correct. Maybe one used to be correct, and then the standard changed. Maybe they’re both correct. I’d refer to ISO 9407:1991, the 4-page ISO standards document for Mondopoint, but then I’d have to pony-up CHF 34 (around £15) for the privilege. Ah, I don’t think so.
I’ve searched the dark-web in vain for some illicit stash of ISO documents. Using “ISO” as a search term doesn’t help, thanks to it being the adopted term for CD-ROM image files. It would be great if there was some underground group out there illegally distributing “standardz”. I guess I’m just going to assume that the correct scale for mondopoint is mm - I18n Guy thinks so (and he appears to have done some research) as does the Canadian military, and that’s good enough for me.
Maybe I’ve been spoiled by the openness of IETF/IANA standards, but I really don’t understand this paying to download standards documents business. On the one-hand, standards bodies need funding, ideally from the companies and organisations that benefit from their work. But on the other-had they shouldn’t make it easy for mis-application of a standard to proliferate as a common interpretation, at least this seems to have happened with mondopoint.
As far as the position not making standards openly available for everyone goes, I now have a one word reply. Cobblers.
