Metric Conversion, Dummies Style (Math Week 7)

Carpet is sold by the linear yard

While scouring the internet in their never-ending hunt for dumbass freelancers, it's not unusual for the Antisocial Network's research team to stumble across questions that were apparently themselves asked by dumbasses. Since, however, we firmly believe that asking a stupid question is nowhere near as great a sin as providing a stupid answer to that question, we're in the habit of giving the knowledge-seeker some slack. That's not so, however, for the person who mungs up the answer. In today's case, said sinner is a repeat offender who has already demonstrated his ignorance on exactly the same topic! He's eHow's Chance E. Gartneer, who was spotted giving the wrong answer to "How to Convert Linear Yards to Meters"¹ after already having screwed up with a similar question involving "lineal metres to square metres."

Chance (the staffers at Antisocial Network HQ are pretty sure that's not his real name) never bothered to look up the definition of a "linear yard" in the process of his alleged research, choosing instead to go straight to a table of conversions for "yards to meters." That's why his introduction blathers on about distances:

"The yard is a staple in track and field, and the meter is a core metric unit on which greater and smaller units are built, like the centimeter and the kilometer..." Apparently Gartneer (not his real name) was bamboozled by the original question. You see, you can't convert a linear yard, which is a unit of area, to a meter, which is a unit of distance. Yes, kiddies, a linear yard is a measure of the area of wall covering, flooring, fabric and a few other commodities. The actual area is a function of the width of the material, e.g., 54 inches. But no, Chance (a pseudonym) was afflicted by one-dimensional thinking: "Multiply the yardage by 0.9144 to convert to meters. For an example, 100 yards multiplied by 0.9144 converts to 91.44 meters."

Sorry, Chance (fake name), that's not correct. To convert linear yards to square meters – a correction you should have made clear in your introduction – you must first calculate the square yardage of the material. For example, a swath of carpet 54 inches wide and 10 feet long covers 15 square yards. Now you can apply the conversion factor (13.7 square meters). 

We have to be honest here: we suspect that if we were going to be giving such stupid answers, we'd adopt a pseudonym ourselves. After all, would you want people to know you'd been awarded the Dumbass of the Day – three times (and counting)?!

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was    ehow.com/how_8204248_convert-linear-yards-meters.html

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