"blake murphy" > wrote in message
...
> On Sun, 12 Jul 2009 08:44:56 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
>
>> "pat" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> Pennyaline wrote:
>>>>James Silverton wrote:
>>>>>Well, I won't hold onto my hat since theMetric systemhas been *legal*
>>>>>here for about a century. I'd also forgotten what was a "Chopine" :-)
>>>>
>>>>It may be legal, young fella, but it isn't American!
>>>
>>> There are US laws that forbid metrication. US Federal law (the FPLA,
>>> for example) forbids metric-only labels on most prepackaged things you
>>> see in the supermarket.
>>
>> Probably because too many people would not know how to easily do the
>> conversion or think in metric terms. Bacon has always been a pound and
>> thus
>> will remain so, or something like that. 500 grams or a half kilo would
>> make
>> their brain hurt.
>>
>> The two reasons I've always run into is a large percentage just don't
>> want
>> to change and are afraid, another big group thinks the US system is
>> superior, just because it is the US system. We are in a world economy,
>> like
>> it or not, and if we used metric, it would be easier for our country to
>> deal
>> wit the rest of the world. The Hubble telescope would not have been
>> screwed
>> up.
>>
>> I've been using metric at work for 20 years now. It is easy and
>> sensible,
>> and the choice of most everyone there now that they've used it.
>
> i'm not that old, but i think i would spend the rest of my life thinking,
> 'o.k., a half kilo is about a pound.'
>

That only happens if both systems are used together. If the US went metric
overnight, i.e., with no transition period, it wouldn't be long before
people thought in metric.