Originally Posted by
jkhuggins
In fact, I was a kid in the 70s, and went through all sorts of education in elementary school and middle school about the metric system. I was perfectly ready to make the switch, 'cuz all the grown-ups said that it was important to do so. Somehow, it never happened.
The problem with making the switch is that The Powers That Be should've just said "we're switching, deal with it". If you ask people whether or not they want to change something in their lives --- myself included --- they're more likely to say "no, I like my life the way it is". Switching can't be a matter of choice.
+1
Australia changed in the 70's; older people will still say things like "or six feet in the old system" but everyone buys meat in kilograms, petrol in litres and carpet in square metres. The US just wimped out.
Don't the (endless, droning) US airport announcements still say something like "liquids weighing more than 3 ounces are not allowed into the sterile area"? That's got to be the trifecta of dumb - it's not weight, it's volume; it's not 3, it's 3.4; and some liquids
are allowed under the numerous exceptions.
