Posted on 11/05/2012 2:14:59 PM PST by null and void
I prefer to use the American Standard:
I would not pin it on that at all. Domestic taxation/regulation, as well as leftist/globalist-influenced trade “agreements”, is what is to blame. Metric has been around since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution; the USA’s big rise as a manufacturing power came about independent of the metric system.
Ah yes, I recall the classes in metric measures in elementary school in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
I'd agree and that goes for kilograms as well. The units are larger so the distinctions are lost. Kilometers are smaller units than miles, though, and we're probably not going to adopt them any time soon.
Metric was only promoted in this country so that tool companies would sell everyone a second set of sockets, deep sockets, box end, open end, and allen wrenches and bigger tool chests to have to hold them all in.
The Red Green show also made light of Metric as does Top Gear (James May often couples metric measurements with some sort of joke about the French).
I started elementary school the same year as you (1973.). While I don’t remember the NBC program, I do remember an A/V cart wheeled into our classroom on a weekly basis. The reception wasn’t the best, but we’d watch PBS for what was kind of like The Electric Company devoted solely to the metric system. It had a catchy theme song- I think it just repeated “It’s the metric system!” We were told how, Under President Carter, the entire USA would make the switch. And then, we never spoke of it again...
Not to mention that for cooking our way is much more logical.
A cup is 8 oz which converts down into a half (4oz) quarter (2oz) eighth (1 oz) which is two tablespoons and the tablespoon which is three teaspoons.
And then you go up to a pint which is two cups, a quart which is two pints or a gallon which is four quarts
Up or down things move in mostly even numbers which makes it easy to expand or shrink the recipe mentally.
And if you are doing emergency cooking without measuring cups and spoons then the standard teacup and spoon works very well.
Now with the liter you have have a half of a liter (500 gm) the quarter of a liter (250gm) and the eighth of a liter (125gm) but at that point any smaller you began to get into fractions.
Nothing divides evenly anymore.
And what do you do without a scale or a measuring cup? Can you "eyeball" 512 grams of flour? Yes, but it is much harder then when it is 4 cups.
Battery volts?
There is one part of American cars which have always been metric.
Does anyone know what it is?
Yes anyone knows allot cars, but his neighbor who doesn’t know anything except 1st base. Everybody knows that nobody perfect. Nobody being perfect must know or he wouldn’t be perfect.
I would go with San Diego.
I would argue the metric system is part an parcel of NASA
No they don't. The only metric they use is litres for engine size. Every thing else: miles, gallons, feet, pounds, horsepowers, torques, is Imperial.
The wife recently converted to the metric system .. her concealed went from a .380 to a 9mm.
Oh Lord, please don’t bring the clusterf-ck of caliber designations into this. Now you’re going to have to explain to everyone how the bullets in a .380 ACP are actually .355” in diameter (same as all 9mm cartridges. or are there some 9’s that don’t use .355 that I’m unaware of), whereas the bullets in a .38 Special are actually .357” in diameter. ;-)
The only woman I care about just went the opposite way - from a 9mm to a .45ACP.
At least now, we can trade ammo.
I can tell you with some (second-hand) authority WHY we didn’t make the switch fully to metric.
10 years ago, I met a gent on a cruise ship who had been big at NASA during the 60s. He was appointed to the commission to address this question. The stumbling block that killed metric was that the union auto mechanics didn’t want to have to buy new tools.
That’s it.
(Also, he said that he heard the challenger audio tape after the explosion, and it was not pleasant).
The teacher tried to show us how much easier the metric system was than the "Old English System." Funny, we spent way more time going over problems in metric.......trying to achieve the desired outcome?
While I scored a perfect on both tests, I did contemplate intentionally failing the metric test.
*redneck switch on -
I'm proud to say I don't measure nuthin' in commie-meters
/redneck
Not quite. The .380 ACP (Automatic COLT Pistol) pistol cartridge was developed by firearms designer John Browning. It was introduced in 1908 by Colt.
Euros renamed this American cartridge 9mm kurtz. But it’s ours, and was in inches first.
Ok I was just kidding, it is volume of the horn.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.