The problem is that hardly anyone speaks Esperanto, but as has repeatedly been mentioned, the rest of the planet uses the Metric system. Which means the rest of the planet’s scientists, weights & measures people, automotive industries, manufacturing industries, etc etc etc.
So not really the same thing at all.
Trade and scientific measurement does still happen sometimes, so there is a compelling application for it. ‘unless’ is redundant here.
Not everywhere…
Folks who are involved in trade/science use metric whenever it suits them to use it. There is no law that I know of requiring that American businesses use non-metric measurements. At least, nothing like what we see in the UK, with grocers getting fined for using the wrong kind of scale.
Business have to interface with the public, which is difficult if the public insists on talking a different language.
What are we actually disagreeing about here?
When it comes to discussions about Metric vs US measurements, I always feel that the pro-metric side is arguing that the US should abandon our current system and use metric instead. I disagree with this. I do not believe that metric is so inherently superior that I should abandon the system I’m comfortable with. Especially since the primary improvement with metric is the ability to translate units, which is something I do very infrequently, and folks who do it frequently can use metric whenever they want.
Especially the towns which don’t have numbered streets. Like, most of them.
I use metric measurements at work (i.e. cm and mg for length and weight of surgical pathology specimens), and I haven’t heard any gripes from the clientele about their lesions not showing up in reports as being in inches and ounces.
I don’t care if eventually most everything switches over to metric. I’m keeping my Fahrenheit temperatures scale though. Screw that boooring Celsius. “It’s 8 degrees out today, how mild.”
The primary improvement is standardization. We need to switch because there’s a huge cost associated with using 2 unit systems, and doing everything in a system different from all other countries.
:smack: Uh, yeah, I skipped a step there.
OK guys…you want weird measurement systems - let us see you top this.
From Wikipedia…
These are the weights and measures systems popular in North India. There were different system in Bengal, South, and Bombay. The following nomenclature was prevalent in North India during 1940s, 50s, and 60s.
1 Dhan (weight of one wheat berry) = 4 Grain of Rice 1 Ratti = 4 Dhan
Ratti is seed of a plant ‘Abrus precatorius’. It is pretty red with a black spot.
1 Masha = 8 Ratti 1 Tola = 12 Masha = 96 Ratti 1 Tak = 24 Ratti = 96 Dhan
Conversion
1 Tola = 11.66375 gram 3.75 Troy ounce = 10 Tola Weight of 64 Dhan (Wheat berries) = Weight of 45 Jau (Barley corns) Weight of 1 Barley corn = 64.79891 milligrams
Measures like tola and ratti are still used for gold and jewellery…though not very common.
There are a ton (see what I did here) more of these in India
Grocers in the UK can use whatever scale they like, as long as it also allows the customer to see the weight in grams. Odd that so many of the “Metric Martyrs” were convicted of selling the wrong weight of goods. What. A. Fucking. Surprise.
Ah yes, that reminds me gold in Thailand is always sold in “baht” or “baht weight.” What makes it confusing for a newcomer is this is completely different from the local monetary currency, which is also called the baht. In English anyway, at least the usually say “baht weight” when referring to gold, and that is 15.244 grams.
Foreigners in Britain have the same problem with pounds and… er, pounds.
We still have a free market economy right?
You could quit your job and become a consultant; you could make millions traveling the US explaining to large companies the huge cost savings they could realize by switching to metric. I’m sure they have never thought of it before.
While you’re at it, you can go up north and try to pursuade the Canadians to give up all their bilingual standards and go with a single, standardized language–that’s sure to save them some money. And go convince the Chinese to give up their character-based writing system–hardly anyone else in the world uses that, right?
Insecurity can be treated dude. Or can it? :dubious:
No need, the large companies already know this. Many have already converted to metric. I don’t think you’ll find many (or any) English-size screws in a new GM car, Dell computer or Schwinn bicycle. For other industries, I think it’s the customers and workers who are resisting the change, not the company management.
I do wonder if I could get a job as a lobbyist for big companies, and get paid to lobby politicians for some kind of mandatory metric law…
I get the feeling that New Zealand and Australia are the only countries that have converted almost totally. Well… I guess Ireland and South Africa are candidates that I don’t know about.
I’ve been listening to lots of online radio from Australia about the floods and now the cyclone with lots of ordinary people calling in. I heard one old guy today talk about inches of water but that’s about the first non-metric units I’ve heard in a month.
I also listen to BBC Five Live and its clear that most Brits still think of their weight in stones and pounds and their height in feet and inches and the roads are still miles.
[QUOTE=tetranz]
I get the feeling that New Zealand and Australia are the only countries that have converted almost totally. Well… I guess Ireland and South Africa are candidates that I don’t know about.
[/quote]
IIRC Ireland converted it’s road (distance) measurements and speed limits to metric a few years ago. (on further research, apparently the distance conversions were done years before, while the speed limits was done about 5 years ago)
Australia, OTOH, even uses only KW normally when referring to Engine Power, which I think is pretty cool for an English-Speaking country (I think even Canada wimps out and uses both Horsepower and KW, at least the ads I saw in MacCleans did)
I always figured stones to be the silliest imperial hold-over measurement - at least use just pounds! And now I learn that many UKians don’t necessarily know how many pounds(force) there are in a stone :smack:
OK, what was this suppose to be anyway (besides a throw-away line in a Seinfeld episode) - a rebreather sort of device to extract oxygen from water? Or some odd idea not worth googling for..