----- Original Message -----
From: "Pat Naughtin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, 2006, March 03 23:42
Subject: [USMA:36190] FW: Re: Metric vs. imperial comments from Australia>
Dear Carleton, Ezra, and All,
I have interspersed some remarks.
On 3/03/06 12:55 PM, "Carleton MacDonald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
One of my other groups got off on a metric tangent. This is from a
poster
who used to live in San Francisco but now lives in Australia. It seems
like his USA background still affects his opinion.
Carleton
Australia has switched to the metric system, Herman.
It has some advantages but constant meddling by the French and the
others make the metric system one that frequently changes.
<snip>
The Anglosphere still seems quite comfortable with imperial measurements
even those countries that have formally gone metric.
All countries have now 'gone metric' even the English speaking nations.
The
countries of the 'Anglosphere' agreed in 1959 that all of their old
measures
would be defined as part of the metric system. There are no longer such
things as Imperial inches, avoirdupois pounds, or USA gallons. All of
these
historical names are now defined in metric units. I suppose they are more
correctly called metric inches, metric pounds, and metric gallons.
I would personally prefer to call these units neo-Napoleonic or second hand
metric units to-day. Napoleon is often wrongly credited with spreading the
metric system over Europe, while in fact he almost brought it down. It was
under Napoleon that for the first time old units were defined in terms of
metric ones, and the USA did that again in 1893.
I do not like the prefix 'metric' for USA and UK units.
