Andy Johnson asked in USMA 11685: >What would trigger the final decision by U.S. to go >metric? > >My hunch is it is the kind of thing where one more >little item, one more little victory, one more >business switching, one more industry converting, >etc., all adds up, until suddenly the entire pile of >little things builds up to making something big >happen. I see it as something like continuing to add >one more feather and one more onto the scales until it >suddenly tips our way. My recollections of the progress of metrication in Canada lead me to the conclusion that it is important to distinguish between passive metrication and active metrication. By passive metrication I mean changes that require no action on the part of the general public, whereas active metrication requires the general public to learn metric terms, or to reveal their ignorance. In Canada we had no public reaction to packaged food with metric-only quantity statements, nor to metric speed-limit and distance signs, nor to kilometre odometrers, nor to Celsius temperatures, nor to Canadian Press presenting the news in metric terms. But the prices of loose foods are usually displayed in pounds, because that is what people are accustomed to, even though most retail scales read kilograms. Commercial building and high-rise construction is metric because it is designed and controlled by university-trained architects and structural engineers. House building remains stubornly imperial because it is done by elementary or high school graduates. Joseph B. Reid 17 Glebe Road West Toronto M5P 1C8 Tel. 416 486-6071
