[muglo] Re: RANT on Canadian imperial settings & politics(was Re: OS Autoconnect)

on 24/7/03 2:49 PM, Tee Cashmore at tee.cashmore@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Eric D wrote:
> 
>> RANT WARNING:.....
>> 
>> If people want to be dumb enough to use imperial measures, why don't they
>> just start using base-12 or base-16 for calculations (base-16 would be about
>> as logical and easy to use as pounds, inches, feet, yards, miles, ounces,
>> quarts, gallons, etc.)?
>> 
>> Anyway, that's my _incoherent_ rant on the subject!!!
>> 
>> Eric.
>> 
>> 
> My Expat Brit Ranting.
> While I agree with your sentiments, methinks you had better visit the UK
> sometime. Imperial is used often, but metric is making big inroads, even
> on my last visit in 1999, partly because of the Euro & ECC. Most
> Canadians still think in Imperial; check the supermarket's pricing.
> TTFN,
> TeeC

Exactly where I'm moving in three months :)

I guess I'll be able to make first hand observations then, but from
incidental news stories and personal web experience it seems that the UK is
where Canada was two decades ago or so (though, I guess I don't know how far
metric has infiltrated the public psyche). Didn't supermarts have to start
selling stuff in kg and L two or three years ago? (I seem to remember
interviews with some indignant shop keepers predicting this was the demise
of "the British way" and threatening to ignore the new law (as a 6th
generation Scottish descendent I say, damn the British way :) I was also
stunned to find out that the UK still uses miles for distance (all the
UK-based map sites use miles and those British cop shows show speeds in
MPH).

I think a sizeable segment of my generation (30 & <) is "bilingual" and I've
encountered a number of people who are nearly exclusively metric (which I
found a little surprising). I never mastered two of NA's imperial systems --
ounces (for weight and volume), and Farenheit and, as I ranted earlier,
Farenheit is perhaps the *worst* of the imperial units since its measurement
scale has little relevance to anything in nature (like the freezing or
boiling point of water).

I wish the damned shops would use kg as their prominent units rather than
lbs. Bananas for $.29/lbs or $.69/kg are about the only prices I know in kg
;). Maybe I should start harassing store managers to let them know my
dissatisfaction with the lbs-preferred state of affairs!

Until the shops make a formal switch to highlight kg instead of lbs imperial
weight will persist as the unit of choice for weight (but, it seems like
volume is now nearly exclusively L -- gallons may get listed but
by-and-large volumes are now L only).

I just find it so funny -- the metric system is now nearly 200 years old and
it is *undeniably* the better measurement systme (I can't think of a single
*advantage* to imperial that is not rooted in tradition), yet a number of
countries still haven't made a full switch (plus, imperial is a cost on
business -- it's illogical to have 12 inches to a foot but only 3 feet to a
yard).

Eric.


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