Re: Metric Time (was Re: Why not 13 months? (Was La Systeme Metrique))
Gaven Miller (gmiller@inca.co.nz)
14 Oct 1995 04:25:51 GMT
Joseph Francis Nebus (nebusj@theorem.math.rpi.edu) wrote:
> aax@ix.netcom.com (ANDREW GRYGUS) writes:
> >And yet one more of them. The >>>only<<< advantage of the metric
> >systems is the sliding decimal point for conversions, so the >>>only<<<
> >thing any of you guys can come up with is obscure conversions that
> >no-one would ever need to do. Since we have units appropriate to their
> >use, we seldom need to convert much of anything in day-to-day life.
> Fine. True story, and among the reasons why I pray for the U.S.
> to get some sense and go metric:
> My parents were having friends over and were making snacks. They
> sent me out to find a suitable roadside farm stand (we do live in the
> Garden State, of course) and purchase one pint of strawberries and one
> quart of raspberries.
> I get to a suitable stand. All the containers of fruit are sold
> in 6-ounce packets.
> I could not remember how many ounces make a quart, or a pint, nor
> could I remember whether a pint or a quart is larger, nor by how much, and
> neither could the poor person working at the stand. And a person who came
> up to the stand to buy something else didn't know either. I ended up
> guessing at how much of what to buy, and my parents weren't sure of
> whether I was close to a pint and a quart either; they just fit it into
> the measuring cup.
> Now, if they'd told me, say, "get a quarter of a liter of
> strawberries and a half a liter of raspberries" I'd never have had the
> slightest trouble figuring out of which I was supposed to buy more, nor
> of roughly how much that should be (every U.S.ian knows precisely how
> much "2 Liters" is; metrics are painless if you just shut up and
> convert already). I think we ended up with too many strawberries and
> not enough raspberries, and there is no telling how many other times such
> an hors-d'ouvre-related clamity has overcome well-meaning people. It won't
> be stopped until the U.S. goes metric.
> Joseph Nebus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
If the US is going to be metric, you'll have to stop phoneticising the
spelling of "litre", "metre" and so forth.
It's french, so the words end weith "re" not "er". Otherwise it would be
"meteric".
Although, I guess taht the "does anything exist outside the US?" faction
will probably redefine one US kilometre as one US mile, one US kilogramme
as one US pound, one US...
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