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> ... but it’s an American website ... I'm really never quite sure what that kind of claim actually means -- it's hosted in the US (it isn't - most of the assets come from proximal CDN for me), it's written exclusively by Americans (it isn't - they are proud of the fact their team covers 115 countries and they have 19 languages between them), it's targeted exclusively to Americans (it isn't - they've launched Quartz India and Quartz Africa), or it's read mostly by Americans (it isn't - I believe their US audience is something less than 50%), or it's owned by Americans (it isn't - Quartz is owned by a Japanese based company), or the person reading it is in North America and wants to believe that most other people are too(I can't really comment on that one). Perhaps it's just the TLD -- but even that's a pretty flimsy claim. I've got my own .org, and I'm very much not in/owned/near/have/were American. Anyway, there's this word tonne (which means 1000kg) and it's entirely not at odds with ton (which doesn't). Unlike gallon, gill, mile, nautical mile, survey foot, quart, pint, fluid ounce, bushel -- which all vary depending which side of the pond you call home -- the tonne is delightfully agnostic of all that madness, and should be embraced and encouraged by sensible journals (for example Quartz) even if it means some North Americans get a bit sensitive about their archaic measurement systems. |