Milliliters for Dummies (Metric System 4)

table of metric units

Fans of the Antisocial Network (you know who you are, Mom) have probably realized that there are some pretty dependable candidates out there in the great internet flyover zone known as "content farmland." When our researchers are stumped for some stupidity or in seeking some comic relief, they have a couple of HubPages.com and eHow.com profile pages bookmarked that are almost certain to generate the dumbassery needed to win another award. Today's one of those days when we visit a previous winner, the one and only Joan Whetzel, to see what silly error(s) she managed to make for HubPages in "Converting Liters to Milliliters."¹

Joan slides into her topic in a big way, as usual, with a glorious introduction that has just a few little errors:

"Studying the metric system is part of math and science classess [sic] in US schools. Though we don’t use it for most thing [sic] in the US, it’s still good to understand how it works. The base unit of liquid measurement in the metric system is the liter. By attaching a prefix to the front of the word "liter" the measurement becomes larger (deka-, kilo-) or smaller (centi-, deci-, milli-). Liters and milliliters are used to measure everything from gasoline to sodas to medication dosages In some cases, knowing the exact meausurement [sic] can become a matter of life and death. In other cases, an approximate measurement is considered okay."

It's OK, we guess, though Joan should probably have mentioned that the liter is the SI unit of volume, not merely of liquid measurement. We'd have been more impressed if Whetzel had mentioned anything about the connection between the the metric units of volume and length. A liter is 1,000 cubic centimeters; and a liter was originally defined as the volume of a kilogram of water. But she didn't... weak research, maybe?

The vast majority of the post is boilerplate fifth-grade science and math exercises, with some standard dictionaries of prefixes (in the range of milli- to hecto- only, no nano-, pico-, mega-, giga-, etc.). Then there are some videos purporting to show exercises in conversion (we admit we didn't watch them...) It's when Joan's post gets to the section she titled "Converting Liters and Milliliters to Standard American Liquid Measurements" that she starts having real problems. Though she had earlier warbled that  "If the doctors prescribes [sic] a 10 ml [sic] dose, then you’d be swallowing 1/100 (0.01) of a liter," her cute little table of "American Liquid Measurements" (someone should tell her that they're Imperial measurements, not "American") begins with a comparison of an 8-ounce cup to milliliters. Maybe it would have helped people if Whetzel had mentioned that a teaspoon is 5 ml and a tablespoon is 15... and maybe not.

One of the reasons Joan is getting award number fourteen from the Antisocial Network is that she doesn't seem to think it's necessary to proofread her content. In the little chart she created for this post, she misinforms her readers that 4 liters = 128 ounces = 8 cups = 1 gallon. So, how many errors are there in that line? Let's count 'em:

1. She should have said "fluid ounces," a unit of liquid measure: an "ounce" is weight, not volume.
2. Four liters equals 135.3 fluid ounces, about 6% more than a gallon
3. Eight cups isn't a gallon, it's two quarts. A gallon equals 16 cups! 

Joan, Joan, Joan: here's yet another Dumbass of the Day award for your mantel. Aren't you just a little embarrassed?

¹ The post has been deleted, but you can still see it using archive.org's Wayback machine. Its URL was   https://hubpages.com/education/Converting-Liters-to-Milliliters

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DD - METRIC SYSTEM