Give 'em 2.54 centimeters...
and they’ll take 1,609.3 meters. Eldridge Mount recently did a post about different units of measurement and how they sometimes don’t make sense or can lead to inaccurate data and misunderstandings.
One thing that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me is America’s refusal to, once and for all, adopt the metric system. In most industrial and engineering work environments, metrics have been the rule for a while now. Kids learn it in school side-by-side with the Imperial system. Our military has gone metric in the Iraq and Afghanistan war theaters. It’s about time the average American joins the rest of the world and consigns inches, feet, miles, cups, quarts, gallons, ounces, pounds and “2,000-lb” tons to the trash heap of history.
But even if this happens (in my lifetime), we Americans can also be pretty set in our ways. A move to metrics will, of course, mean that a lot of time-honored adages will have to change. For example:
“28 grams of prevention are worth 0.45 kilograms of cure.”
“I’d walk 1.6 kilometers for a Camel (cigarette).” [Remember that one?]
“I’m going to plow the back 16.18 hectares.”
“Don’t be penny wise and 450-grams foolish.”
“That’ll happen when Hell ‘zeroes’ over!”
OK, that last one was a pit of a stretch, but you get the drift.
Roberto commented:
Down in Mexico it is even worse. Since a lot of our machines come from the USA, they have imperial tooling. However, the system we normaly use is metric. The result: for pipes (for example) we specify the diameter in inches (tool-detemined)… and the lenght in meters (non-tool-determined).
We still have many old ERP systems (that only handle imperial system) made in the USA still working. The result: we think in square meters, but the systems are fed and they report everything in square feet (same applies for lb vs kg…).
We always think in litters, however baby bottles, powder milk… are always specified in oz.
I have two conclusions:
1. It can be worse than it is in the USA (not proud of it).
2. Please USA: change ASAP!
Mike commented:
It would be un-American to go metric and you will have to drag my 111-kilogram body fighting and kicking all the way.
Jim commented:
I always thought the latter reference in “penny wise and pound foolish” was to the British monetary pound, not the weight measure…
ADVANCED commented:
While in Sweden a few years ago, the on-going comment was, The Americans are going Metric….. inch by inch.
Bruce Arkwright, Jr commented:
If you allow me I do have a petition to move things…change.org/actions/view/twenty-first_century_metric_america
and…change.org/actions/view/twenty-first_century_metric_america_in_your_state
