On Wednesday 06 January 2010 10:14:58 Stephen Humphreys wrote: > I think it's wrong to use people as the basis for the figures because it > assumes that all US citizens never use metric and all UK subjects never use > imperial! It should be based on governments - I think - where the state > might have an official position on 'being all metric'. Am I correct in > saying that the US is 'officially' metric on this basis?
The official position in the US is that the metric system is preferred, but there are laws at odds with this, such as the pricing of gasoline. I don't think it should be based on governments. It should be based on people, but should not assume that everyone in a country uses the system official in that country. In Brazil, the metric system is official, but there are people such as the Pirahã (or Pirarrã) who don't count to 10, let alone measure in metric. In the USA, familiarity with metric and with particular metric units varies widely with occupation, and far more people know that a watt is a volt times an ampere than a joule per second. Pierre -- I believe in Yellow when I'm in Sweden and in Black when I'm in Wales.
