brooklyn1 wrote:
> "graham" > wrote in message
> ...
>> "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.
>>
>>
> Nonsense. If you need to think about it then it's not second nature...
> metric will never become second nature to someone who grew up with English
> measurement from the cradle. I know auto mechnics with 40 years experience
> who readily admit that they still need to double/triple check anything
> metric... they can eyeball the correct socket for any SAE bolt first shot
> but with metric they have to try 2-3. An American has about as much chance
> of having metric become second nature as they would driving on the left side
> of the road.
>
>
>
You may want to tell that to someone who works in the US medical
community for one and watch them laugh at you. They explicitly use SI
metric because calculations are so much easier. I am quite sure most
docs, nurses, staff etc were using English measurements "from the cradle"

At a former job we started doing business with Asian countries. Within a
short time I and the dozen people I had working for me were "thinking"
in metric without issues. People who make those claims simply don't want
to do it.