[Sca-cooks] measurement
Margaret Rendell
m_rendell at optusnet.com.au
Sat May 24 19:41:33 PDT 2008
so, the answer as to why nothing has been done is "committees"?
Should've known. :)
Margaret
Johnna Holloway wrote:
> Why does the USA still use the mile?
> http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/internat.htm
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_States
> where it notes
> In 1981, the Metric Board reported to Congress that it lacked the
> clear Congressional mandate necessary to bring about national
> conversion. Due to this apparent ineffectiveness, and in a
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan> effort by Reagan to
> reduce federal spending, the Metric Board was disbanded in the fall of
> 1982.
>
> Despite this, the National Highway System Designation Act passed in
> 1995 and prohibited the use of Federal-aid highway funds to convert
> existing signs or purchase new signs with metric units.
>
> Johnnae
>
> Margaret Rendell wrote:
>> 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
>
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