This video from Weird History goes more than nine minutes before it addresses the actual question of why the US doesn't completely operate on the metric system. Up to that point, we get the history of trying to set a standard for weights and measures in the United States from its founding. That history is essentially that congress didn't want to put in the work at first, and later on decided it was too expensive to change what people were already doing. Then it boils down to what we already know- Americans are a contrary bunch and don't like to be told what to do. Also, Some of us are lazy and don't want to go to the effort of learning a new system, while others of us have no problem understanding both systems, even the difficult one.
Monday, July 31, 2023
Why Don't Americans Use the Metric System?
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8 comments:
I just use both systems. For temperatures, I prefer Fahrenheit. For weights, I prefer metrics. For distance I am equally comfortable with miles and kilometers.
When I am doing entomology or botany, I use millimeter and centimeters. If someone said- you should see him, he weighs 14 Stone, I would be at a loss!
Because while my car has a 1.8 liter engine, I can get my Mountain Dew in 2 liter bottles, and if I ever need to smack someone upside the head I'd rather use a 2×4 instead of a 40x90mm piece of wood, that's why.
No matter how well we learn the metric system, if you didn't start out with it in kindergarten you'll still have to convert in your head to get the mental picture of what you're talking about.
Soso Bruce is soso wrong.
As is three letters Maine.
Soso - We here in New Zealand went metric in 1976. I nwas in my twenties back then, working as a builder, inches, fractions of inches, et cetera. Like a trout in a pristine river I gulped in metric like yummy tiny minnows (or whatever trout eat) ... here was a system based on logic and the same as the dollar system we had converted to a few years before, easy peasy and I have problems picturing feets or pounds in my head, especially as pounds are money in the UK, ffs.
xxxMaine - 'Old school, based on a British king's body part' inches, especially 4 by 2 (yanks say 2 by 4 ... WHY ?) converts very nearly, and very neatly, to 90 by 45, and that is the standard plane gauged size for most domestic building framing.
The rest of you Americans - It is METRES not meters, meters are measuring machines, such as speed-o-meter and electric meter ... whereas metres are the units of measure used internationally and in 194 of the 197 countries of the world, ... the outliers, call them contrary if you like, we call them backwards (sorry) ... are Liberia, Myanmar an the, ha, USA.
Continuing to use a complicated and awkward system because you think it is too hard to change or that your population is too ... insert your own word ... does seem a bit 'redumbdant' especially when the dollar system is exactly the same.
Still you had nice looking cars in the 1950s and 60, so that makes you all ok in my eyes.
1959 Chevrolet Bel Air is my all time favourite, although I had a 1956 Bel Air for years in my twenties, I always wanted a 1959 model.
I drive a Swedish car these day.
I use the metric system. Everytime I buy bullets. I don’t know about Swedish cars, but I love Swedish fish. I use gummy worms to catch them.
And while we're on the subject of measurements, Here. We. Go:
The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Well, because that's the way they built them in England, and English engineers designed the first US railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the wagon tramways, and that's the gauge they used. So, why did 'they' use that gauge then?
Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that same wheel spacing. Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break more often on some of the old, long distance roads in England . You see, that's the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England ) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since.
And what about the ruts in the roads?
Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match or run the risk of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome , they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever.
So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder 'What horse's ass came up with this?', you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.)
Now, the twist to the story:
When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah . The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
So, a major Space Shuttle design feature, of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system, was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass. And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important? Ancient horse's asses control almost everything.
Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages
me•ter
noun
1. the SI base unit of length (equivalent to approximately 39.37 inches), first introduced as a unit of length in the metric system.
"sit two meters away from the TV screen"
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