[Sca-cooks] measurement Was:Re: Sign of the Times perhaps--Dinner at Crown - cancelled

[Margaret Rendell]

Terry Decker wrote:
>
>> Antonia Calvo wrote:
>>> Daniel & Elizabeth Phelps wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Here in Tallahassee, premium is up to $4.19, yesterday regular was 
>>>> $3.89 where I went; other places in Florida are more. Definitely an 
>>>> issue for everybody this summer.
>>>
>>> *shrug*
>>>
>>> We just passed NZ$2/l.  That's something over US$6/gallon.
>>>
>>
>> Ah, you beat me, both in quickness to reply and price.
>> It's up to Aus$1.60/l (about US$5.80 / gallon) here...
>>
>> Margaret/Emma
>
> Don't you need to also consider the differences between Imperial 
> gallons and U.S. gallons?  I believe New Zealand and Australia measure 
> gasoline in Imperial gallons which contain slightly more than 3/4 of a 
> liter more than the U.S. gallon.  If this is the case, then the New 
> Zealand price would be roughly $5/1 U.S. and the Australian would be 
> $4.83/1 U.S.  That would mean the prices are roughly equivalent to the 
> prices in California.


this has already been sorted out (we should have written 'litres' rather 
than 'l', it would have been clearer), but it leads me to a related 
question...why does the US still use the old measures, rather than 
metric? As far as I can tell, there are two possible reasons

1) nostalgia/historical interest
2) the expense and effort in changing


but I don't really know, as I've used metric my whole life, so can't 
really compare the two systems. I'm interested to know - if there are 
actually ways in which it is superior?

Recently my eight-year-old asked what a 'mile' was and my husband I 
explained it to him, which led to an explanation of the imperial system 
in general. At first he thought we were making it up as we went along to 
fool him because it sounded so unlikely to him (especially since my 
husband and I disagreed a bit on specifics, as neither of us really 
understand it)...

Margaret/Emma
Krae Glas, Lochac