Re: Metric

[Robatoy]

> make sure that the French is more prominent than the English. >

> Now, that's a poor comparison. Metric conversion has only come to the > forefront as more and more manufacturing becomes a worldwide concern and > largely over the past 50 years. Whereas, Quebec French have always been > screwed up. After all, they're French, they're largely anti Canadian and > they think strangely. Thank God my father moved our family from Montreal to > Toronto when I was eleven and I didn't have to suffer my teenage years > through a totally crazy society. Growing up is tough enough. Doing it in > Quebec as an English speaking youth is totally whacked.

What a lot of contributors here at Wreck are missing is the OP's (me) original post. Practically the whole world runs on metric. Why not the USA? Is it because the extreme Right is so nationalistic as to think that they are always right, better, smarter than the rest of the planet? Is it because they're afraid that they are being trapped into a New World Dimension Order? Is it because that their very symbol of liberty was designed/built in metric, in France? (Statue of Liberty) Or is it chauvinism, plain and simple?

[steve robinson]

The UK still uses both systems so do many other countries and ex colonies

The uk switched to metric to bring us in line with the EEC as it was then however most people over 45 still tend to use imperial measurements because thats what we are used too although most can use metric if they need to

Road speed signs are still in imperial as are clothes sizes with the metric equivelent written next to them Shops were supposed to switch to metric however most still advertise foodweights in pounds and ounces as well

Time is rarely displayed in metric.

Alcohol is sold in imperial and metric measurements , fuel is now sold in litres so it looks cheaper on the forcourt (£1.05p a litre sounds better than £4.80p a gallon as does a penny a litre rise against a 5 p a gallon rise )

[Steve Turner]

No. :-)

[Morris Dovey]

You missed the easiest answer, that the people on the other side of the bridge are simply more comfortable with an old system - and a very large majority aren't enthusiastic about losing that comfort.

I suspect that if you were to take a poll, the result would be that we're comfortable with what we've got and can't see any good reason to throw that comfort away and struggle to cope with something else.

It has a lot less to do with France than it does with the fact that Aunt Emily's recipe for the family's favorite dessert may not come out quite right when ingredients are measured differently, or that any of a zillion other recipes, designs, plans, may stop working if the underlying measurement system changes. (OMG, what'll I do if they stop making 10" blades for my Unisaur? Yikes!)

Lady Liberty's design metrics and, to a lesser extent, her place of origin lost importance as she transitioned from being an object in New York to a treasured symbol for all people everywhere (something I hadn't much thought about until I saw her in Tiananmen Square in '89, and have thought about a lot since).

[David Nebenzahl]

On 9/10/2009 5:42 AM Robatoy spake thus:

In the interest of actually addressing the point of yourstarting post in this thread, let me say this [harrumph]:

While I may appear to have something of a laissez-faire attitude concerning metrification in the U.S.--in fact, I'm basically against it, for a number of reasons--to answer your question, I think there's only one logical explanation.

American Exceptionalism. Plain and simple.

As in so many other aspects of policy, it's the overweening hubris and the belief that we, the Merkin People, are specially endowed by our Creator with Speshul Magical Powerz that render us immune to the natural laws that bind other, lesser peoples.

(But I still oppose forced metrification here.)

[diggerop]

[Stuart]

Use 254mm blades same as I do on my table saw :-)

[Stuart]

I guess our closer proximity to Europe and the regular import of cars made in France, Germany, Italy etc meant that tool kits including both metric and imperial spanners etc were common place long before official, legally enforced, metrication here. I recall the first socket set I bought, in around 1970, had both, although my car at the time was exclusively A/F fasteners. (possibly some BA in small size screws). I think my father had a couple of imperial-only tape measures but by the time I started buying dual scaling was the norm.

[Jerome Meekings]

or use the 250mm blade that is about the real size of your 10" blade after its first sharpening ;-) ;-)

Or the size it really is but is only marked 10" as a Linus Blanket thing