With respect you're missing the point. It may be available but it isn't being used or understood properly. For example most people understand that a 'kilo' is a unit of weight, but how many realise the that 'kilo' is short for kilogram and that it means 1000 grams
I have no evidence or reports to back my claim, but considering that metric has been taught in schools since the early 70's, then that would mean that everyone approaching 50~60 should know metric.
However, I believe most people in the world don't dwell too much on the laws of measurements, they just use the one's that are offered to them each day as a 'reference number' - eg 2 litre bottle of coke, 26 PSI in the tyres, 2 mm screw, 35 mpg etc etc
in the same way the a kilometre means 1000 metres? If they really understood how simple it all is they might pick it up and use it more but even then there are still barriers making it difficult for people to think metric.
I would think that after 40ish years of it being here it would at least evolve into the pshychie - thus supporting many claims that it's 'easier' than imperial.
Again I have no proof - but I supect that if you asked (UK) people how many metres there are in a km then more would get the answer correct than to the question 'What's the capital of Australia'.
For example go into any mens clothes shop in the UK. Most of the time you will find waiste sizes and chest sizes etc in inches. You are not allowed to think metric in a typical mens clothes store. I've seen metric supplementary indications sometimes but its the inch measures that hit you in the face. They hang on racks or in cubby holes sorted into inch sizes. How can you expect people to learn to think and use metric if they can't apply it to their own body size?
I bought 2 pairs of trouser (actually, one pair were jeans) in Cologne, Germany (the most metricated country in the world IMHO) and both were inch based, sorted by inches. The seller was quite obviously gay, but that's a totally different story! The point here is - the number is a reference number. In most applications of measurement the masses use these figures as reference numbers. Hardly anyone will know that a litre of water at room temp will have a 'mass' (not weight, mind) of 1 kg. Hardly anyone will know that 'Km' is the wrong way of saying 'km' (and that's based upon the numerous times I've seen KGS, mts, MT, KMS etc etc **ON THE CONTINENT**). The avg joe doesn't know and won't need to know all the rules involved in buying 0.5 kg of prime angus mince compared to the 'awful, backward, messy, antiquated' rule-less way of purchasing a pound of the stuff. Life is not that technical to most people. Unless you're a scientist or the like.
Now I realise that for those who make a hobby from metric then these rules are important. But to the average person they are as little importance as my unipivot tone-arm versus the fixed type would be.
Look in catalogues and you'll typically find product dimensions sometimes being described in inches, sometimes cm, sometimes both. There is no consistency. I've heard a jewelry salesman describe a bracelet as 9 mm wide and 7 1/2 inches long!
I thnk the major issue for this particular point in the US is to not do what we've done in the UK - show measures in millimetres! It looks quitede messy having thousands of millimetres as a description of a cupboard!
BTW - I don't know if this is uniquely British (and it does go against my point of mixing measures in the same breath) but I can make a perfect mind image of the bracelet you meantion there.
If only the UK government actually had a policy on metrication at all! Unless you count 'do nothing' as a policy.
The only tactic that I've seen is this:
- Claim the credit for all popular legislation that implement EU directives as your own initiative selecting the best of European practice etc.
Anyting else blame it on the EU and claim that there's nothing you can do about it (that includes metrication).
Yes - I clearly agree with what you say there. All I'll add is that when people start complaining, the govt looks away. As if to say "yes you voted us in, but this ain't our problem despite the fact that we could, if we wanted to, challenge it"
Result - everybody in the UK things that metrication is an EU plot. Hence the merket traders rebellion we saw in the year 2000 onward.
I agree with that also.
I hate the EU (I also love Europe, something that certain people in the EU-servile camp can't and will never understand). But the EU is more corruptive and dangersous (IMHO!!!) that metres and litres!
Of course you have the right to do that if you so wish. There are people who still think in � s d,
I'm from the UK and I've NEVER heard people talk in terms of LSD. Don't confuse LBs and Ozs with LSD. �/p can ONLY replace LSD (like the euro can ONLY replace �/p, DM, etc) metric and imperial can demonstratively work in a community side by side.
that's their right. But members of BWMA don't have the right to pretend they are protecting peoples freedom of choice when what they really wan't is to stop metric becoming dominant and preserve old measures for the sake of it. Nor do they have the right to claim the majority of people are on their side on the basis of shallow surveys that don't examine the issue properly. Nor do they have the right to claim the embodiment of the "average Brit" on the basis of their own anecdotal evidence and personal perception.
With respect I can only disagree with you there (as you'd expect/predict)
BWMA has campaigned for litres to be used in an Austrian pub (in the UK) this was not a publicity campaign as to suggest so would make assumptions about the mental health of the Austrian pub owners involved.
They just want parity.
And there's nothing wrong with claiming that imperial is favoured - the best poll for that was Tesco's.
I remember speaking to someone who has very little interest in this debate, but when I told them that they'd changed Irelands roads to metric, he told me he didn't know that had happened (there was no airtime given to it over here) but then followed up with "they'd better not do that here". I asked him 'why' and he just said 'they wouldn't dare'. I'm not sure if its to do with the EU-argument or a liking of imperial but I did not take the conversation any further.
UKMA and USMA are campaigning to bring about change by peacful means and are acting within the normal confines of respect for freedom and democracy. The issue they are campaigning for may not be a high priority with most people and the contention that things are in a mess will not necessarily occur to many, but that doesn't invalidate it. Part of the problem is to get it talked about so people do start to think about it.
In the end their respective campaigns will only succeed if people at all levels in society do ulimately go along with what they are trying to do and common sense prevails, as it usually does.
All I can say is "40 yrs and counting".
I also must say that I feel the views of UKMA and USMA are different in many respects.
Reading "A very British mess" points clearly to quite heavy handed statist measures.
So also do their pro-forma letters-to-MPs on their webpage.
I have no children, yet, but I'd never use a BWMA pro-forma letter to complain to my MP that imperial is being down-trodden and 'its not fair on my kids'. Fortunatetly BWMA don't do such pro-forma letters.
