On 25/01/2005, at 1:52 PM, Frank P. Marrone wrote:
>
> I think things will continue to progress to metric here in the states,
> I
> rarely hear objections to it like when it was a political issue in the
> late
> 70's. Some thing I don't expect to see change from English units in
> my life
> time however, like gallons as a measure of fuel at the pump. Oh sure,
> you
> can put liters up there too but we are just too used to talking in
> $/gal and
> MPG for that to change.
>
>
Well, I was a child of two dramatic eras of change.
In the mid sixties we changed to decimal currency. I was young enough
to be flexible and made the change pretty smoothly, yet I was old
enough (6/7 years of age) to remember POUNDS, SHILLINGS and PENCE. I
remember that one day it cost threepence to catch the bus to "the top
of the hill shops" (as one coin it was a tiny little silver thing that
also ended up in our plum pudding at Christmas time). The next day,
seemingly, it cost five cents (a larger silver coin).
Not much after that I remember everyone putting three dollars worth of
petrol in their cars, which would probably last them the week.
Next, I was at school when we really started the push to metric - pity
was that I had already been learning in feet and inches (and rods,
perches, chains, acres, gallons, pints, pounds, ounces, etc. etc.) so
we had to make the change. A year or two later and metric would be all
I learned.
This means that I can immediately visualise someone described at six
foot tall... but now we here to be on the lookout for someone 180cm
tall????? My transition to kilometres was damaged by getting old cars
with the speedo in miles. I still get confused when people quote
acceleration as 0-100... ummm, that is quick, I think until I realise
it is 0-100kmh (about 60mph).
But worse still is fuel consumption. I just can't get a grip on
litres-per-100kilometres instead of miles-per-gallon!!
I wish I was a few years younger and none of this would have been an
issue!! Of course, I haven't even touched on the pronounciation of
"kilometers" :-)
But then again I would not wish the complicated miles, chains, yards,
feet, inches (pounds, ounces etc.) calculations on anyone :-) The
change has gotta hurt a generation or two... but the long term gain is
well worth it!
=====
Amazingly, Australia was one of the LAST to convert:
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/internat.htm
and now " the only other countries (apart from the US) that have not
officially adopted the metric system are Liberia (in western Africa)
and Myanmar (also known as Burma, in Southeast Asia)"
Eric
'68 MGB MkII
Adelaide, South Australia
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