At 1:17 -0500 00/12/22, James R. Frysinger wrote:
Everyone seems to want to reinvent my question. Here it is, again:
What person (name, please, and date if possible) was responsible for the
word "metric" to be used in the adjective form in the phrase "metric
system". It could have been called the "yay-big system", the "ten-sies
system", the "Republican Egalitarian Measuring System", or just "the
Jaques Henri d'Orle System". But it came to be called the "metric
system". Again who made that happen -- not why, not based on whatever
etymology -- just who? Borda has been nominated, perhaps borrowing from
Burattini. Some person must have said (in French, I'm sure), "Je sais,
mes amis, appelons-le le syst�me m�trique." Who? Forget "why"; that's
been covered.
Jim
Jim,
your question is a good question - which means that there is no
good answer to it !
I am not able to give a name (and a date) for a person
responsible for term "metric system", or for the exact name
"decimal metric system".
Indeed, for a number of years after 1790, various terms were used
for naming "the new system of weights and measures", but
never "the metric system".
In my documentation, the first official document which mentions
"le syst�me m�trique" is a declaration from the Ministry
of the Interior of the King Louis XVIII government, on 4 July 1814
: "L'�tablissement du syst�me
m�trique sera continu� sur le plan qui a �t� suivi jusqu'�
maintenant " (the development of the metric system will be
pursued on the same basis as followed till now). Please note the
irony : the revolutionary metric system rescued by a
monarchy...
I suppose we cannot find a person who really coined the term
"metric system". Probably it developed by itself, until
accepted by the general population.
Louis
