I know we had a lengthy discussion about pros and cons of metric on BITOG several years back. I just remembered it when reading this article...
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2015/07/us/metric-road-american-story/
Having grown up on metric, the whole concept of imperial units was really foreign to me. It took a lot of time to get used to it as I would always be trying to convert in my head back to metric... for example, 12 inches meant little to me, but I could easily imagine the length of 30 centimeters in my head.
But the more time I spent with Imperial system, the more I started realizing it's what makes America what it is. Thinking of all the literature, song lyrics, movies... they would just not sound the same if miles, gallons, and pounds were suddenly replaced by kilometers, liters, and kilograms. I guess what I'm saying is that there is certain charm to it, and maybe it's worth preserving its uniqueness.
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2015/07/us/metric-road-american-story/
Quote:
Marciano, however, makes a credible argument for the old way of counting, which is based on everyday things and parts of the body.
"People say the metric system makes sense," Marciano says, "But in nature we don't think about dividing things by 10, do we? We think of halves and feet and thirds."
Acres, for instance, were based on the amount of land a man could plow in a day.
"Throughout history we have measured things by ourselves," Marciano says. "We are really losing something with metric."
[...]
Marciano ends his book on the metric system with this thought: Think of America as preserving important ways of thinking that human beings used for centuries.
"If we get rid of our measures, we will never bring them back. To be for a metric America is to be for a global monoculture."
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2015/07/us/metric-road-american-story/
Having grown up on metric, the whole concept of imperial units was really foreign to me. It took a lot of time to get used to it as I would always be trying to convert in my head back to metric... for example, 12 inches meant little to me, but I could easily imagine the length of 30 centimeters in my head.
But the more time I spent with Imperial system, the more I started realizing it's what makes America what it is. Thinking of all the literature, song lyrics, movies... they would just not sound the same if miles, gallons, and pounds were suddenly replaced by kilometers, liters, and kilograms. I guess what I'm saying is that there is certain charm to it, and maybe it's worth preserving its uniqueness.
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2015/07/us/metric-road-american-story/
Quote:
Marciano, however, makes a credible argument for the old way of counting, which is based on everyday things and parts of the body.
"People say the metric system makes sense," Marciano says, "But in nature we don't think about dividing things by 10, do we? We think of halves and feet and thirds."
Acres, for instance, were based on the amount of land a man could plow in a day.
"Throughout history we have measured things by ourselves," Marciano says. "We are really losing something with metric."
[...]
Marciano ends his book on the metric system with this thought: Think of America as preserving important ways of thinking that human beings used for centuries.
"If we get rid of our measures, we will never bring them back. To be for a metric America is to be for a global monoculture."