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The entire civilized world outside of the U.S. uses SI metrics, where as the U.S. is still stuck on ridiculously outdated measures such as feet, inches, pounds, fahrenheit, etc. Can we somehow persuade Joe Sixpack to turn off television for five minutes and get acquainted with the SI system, or are we destined to continue to embarrass ourselves with units of measure the rest of the world ditched when the horse and buggy went out of style?
I've switched to the metric system for my own needs long ago. The private sector is gradually switching too, so as to avoid separate container sizes, etc from the rest of the world. Really the only time I'm forced to deal with imperial units are things over which the government has a monopoly, like road signs.
As long as professional sports retains the Imperial option. Announcing a 7 Foot Center in basketball does not have the same impact in Metric. A 1st and 10 in Metric is likewise too strange.
The entire civilized world outside of the U.S. uses SI metrics, where as the U.S. is still stuck on ridiculously outdated measures such as feet, inches, pounds, fahrenheit, etc. Can we somehow persuade Joe Sixpack to turn off television for five minutes and get acquainted with the SI system, or are we destined to continue to embarrass ourselves with units of measure the rest of the world ditched when the horse and buggy went out of style?
Intersting post. No doubt about it, the metric system is the world's standard, and the 'way to go'...yet from force of habit, many American adults are reluctant to part with the "old"..probably mostly for emotional reasons. Our attachment to "feet and inches", "pounds and tons", "ounces and gallons", and degrees of temperature is part of the culture, and we have "miles to go" if we're ever going to change.
Some years ago, a small part of the Interstate Highway System (I-19) from Tucson to the Mexican border @ Nogales, was posted in "all metrics" as a test. Distance signs, speed limits, everything was in kilometers ONLY..no 'mileage'. It was massively unpopular, and the public complained.
Today, in fact, we ARE slowly changing. Frequently we'll see BOTH systems, and we DO have (for example) Soda and Liquor bottles in the 750 ml size.
Interestingly, my field of work (water supply) has been PART metric and PART English for years. Out in the 'field'....reservoirs, pipelines, canals, wastewater treatment plants...the Water industry uses gallons....Gallons per minute, Million-gallons-per-day treatment, Acre-feet of water, etc etc. But in the LAB, the same water industry uses metrics, and lab testing is done in terms of liters, cc's, mg/l, degrees Celsius, etc etc.
The entire civilized world outside of the U.S. uses SI metrics, where as the U.S. is still stuck on ridiculously outdated measures such as feet, inches, pounds, fahrenheit, etc. Can we somehow persuade Joe Sixpack to turn off television for five minutes and get acquainted with the SI system, or are we destined to continue to embarrass ourselves with units of measure the rest of the world ditched when the horse and buggy went out of style?
There you have it Mr. President, the economic stimulus package. A mandatory switch will boost output of those producing measured goods and the instruments needed to measure with and the public buying them. From maps and speed limits to cookbooks and untensils.
And SCGranny will have to replace all her measuring utensils.
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