Originally Posted by
lhbernhardt
Yeah, I hope I am not offending all you Yanks (well, I'm a dual citizen myself - raised in Berkeley and Oakland during the 60's, living in Canada since the 70's) but I always wonder when the USA is going to join the rest of the world, which happens to be on the metric system. Holy cow, even the US military uses metric, why don't civilians?
T- L.
You're no offending me at all. I agree with everything you've said. I favor a move to metric. Attempts have indeed been made. An attempt was made in the 70's, during the Carter administration, I think. There were public service ads in newspapers and on tv, telling people all about how easy the metric system would make it for everyone. A second, smaller attempt was made in the early 80's. What happened was,,,nothing.
When will the USA convert to metric? My guess would be never. The old english system is just too entrenched. Americans hate changes in the "status quo". (witness the failure of the gold dollar coin a few years ago.) I remember a few gas stations in the 70s, adjusting their pumps to sell gas by the liter. The result? people stopped buying gas at those stations, and they quickly adjusted their pumps back.
Automobile manufacturers were able to market engine displacement in terms of Liters, instead of cubic inches, but that's about it. And even then, some "Manly Men" won't hear of that. They want their engines in cubic inches, and "not that commie metric crap". Hey don't laugh, I've heard it said.