On 12/17/2012 04:18 AM, Mark Wendt wrote: > On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 6:25 AM, andy pugh <bodge...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> You don't understand the ideas and ideals behind the USA. The USA >>> became the USA to get away from Europe. >>
You are not correct here. I do understand it way better than 53% (?). >> I thought it was to get away from Britain? >> And changing to the French units would have been a logical part of that. >> >> In fact, it very nearly happened. France sent a metre standard to the >> US, but it was (accidentally) intercepted by a British privateer, and >> by the time it finally arrived the chap who was bringing it had died >> in captivity. Had he arrived in time, and been persuasive enough, then >> the US would probably have been metric. >> >> -- >> atp > > That was the Revolutionary War, which didn't happen until the late > 18th century. People from all over Europe were migrating to here long > before that to get away from the repressive governments and monarchies > at the time. English, Dutch, French, German and others. > > Mark This link tells interesting story better than I can: http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/usmetric.html "The U.S. adopted the metric system in 1866. What the U.S. has failed to do is to restrict or prohibit the use of traditional units in areas touching the ordinary citizen: construction, real estate transactions, retail trade, and education. The U.S. has not made the crucial transition from "soft metric" to "hard metric", so that "1 pint (473 mL)" becomes "500 mL (1.057 pint)", with the traditional equivalent fading into smaller type sizes and finally disappearing." Sorry, I did not want this to escalate into political discussion; I stop here. -- Rafael ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LogMeIn Rescue: Anywhere, Anytime Remote support for IT. Free Trial Remotely access PCs and mobile devices and provide instant support Improve your efficiency, and focus on delivering more value-add services Discover what IT Professionals Know. Rescue delivers http://p.sf.net/sfu/logmein_12329d2d _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
