With the change to metric.....

[mrvette]

comes some changes to the lingo...

Like the phrase when traveling ....Clicking off the miles.....changes to....

Clicking off the Klicks.....

And which liter is lighter? oil, water, gas, detergent???

any more??? feel free....

[Kerrmudgeon]

You get used to it pretty quick.....no biggie. The only thing in life that doesn't change is that change will always be a constant......

Kilometers......cliks.
yard stick......meterstick
six inches......15 centimeters!
litre of wine.....35 ounces, or just enough.

[Uncle Meat]

/Steven_Tyler voice on

Suck on my big 25.4 Centimeter.... RECORD!

/Steven_Tyler voice off

U.M.

[mrvette]

Originally Posted by TxAg

Metric sure is easier to use on a day-to-day basis.

NO doubt, and have wished we switched many years ago, so I would not have to deal with it......the thought change process, that it SO ingrained I can't switch.....

[Mike Mercury]

the US conversion to metric...

Why Won’t America Go Metric?

Why is it that America hasn’t gone full-on metric? The simple answer is that the overwhelming majority of Americans have never wanted to. The gains have always seemed too little, and the goal too purist.

The measurement debate actually goes back to our nation’s very beginning. The original metric system was developed in France during its revolution, and was so radically decimal that it divided the day into 10 hours. As our first secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson was charged with deciding which set of measures would be best for the country. He had been instrumental in creating the dollar—the first fully decimal measure any nation ever used. Jefferson rejected the metric system, however, because in origin he found it to be too French—which was saying something coming from the nation’s foremost Francophile. His beef was that the meter was conceived as a portion of a survey of France, which could only be measured in French territory. John Quincy Adams, for his part, couldn’t recommend that the United States adopt a measurement system that nearly vanished after the demise of the French Empire.

The meter’s fortunes would soon rebound, however. A new wave of revolutions in the 1830s would see France and Belgium re-adopt the system, while the second half of the 19th century would see it become a truly international system. The reasons for its adoption were various. Italy and Germany were unified out of dozens of statelets, duchies, and principalities, and a neutral system of measurement helped soothe parochial jealousies. Decolonization in Eastern Europe and South America created new nations keen to adopt modernity and standards that would align them with Western Europe. In all these cases, however, conversion was dictated by democratically deficient governments bucking the will of the people. The 1880s imposition of the metric system in Brazil led to a full-scale uprising that lasted months.

The strongest push in the U.S. actually came at the start of the 20th century, Alexander Graham Bell, and other notables testified at congressional hearings on metric conversion. The head of the new Bureau of Standards put forth the metric system as a vital national interest. But charges of elitism and wasting money came from a public that increasingly believed the U.S. should be the leader in global affairs and not just another follower.

Politics and economics have been the real incentives to go metric. The world’s most anti-metric nation—Great Britain—grudgingly began to ditch its Imperial system in the 1970s because it was the only way to gain access to the markets of continental Europe. Most of the rest of the world adopted the measures in order not to fall behind in the global economy.

There is no question that a uniform global system of measurement helps cross-border trade and investment. For this reason, labor unions were among the strongest opponents of 1970s-era metrication, fearing that the switch would make it easier to ship jobs off-shore.

Is global uniformity a good thing? Not when it comes to cultural issues, and customary measures are certainly a part of our national culture. But to have brains trained in the thirds, quarters, sixths, eighths, and twelfths of our inches and ounces, as well as the relentless decimals of the metric system can only be beneficial, in the same way that learning a second language is better than knowing only one. That ours is a dual-measurement country is part of our great diversity.

[Mike Mercury]

‘Exactly what am I personally going to get from this?

I’m going to get annoyed.’

indeed.

[Bill]

We fought and won the big one, WWII, specifically so we wouldn't have to adopt commie ideals like the metric system.

Allowing metric to gain a foothold here was obviously a diabolical plot by Big Tool, to get us to buy twice as many sockets and open end wrenches. We should have demanded long ago that any imported products to the US use standard bolts and nuts.

[Mike Mercury]

[Kerrmudgeon]

[Mike Mercury]

Originally Posted by Kerrmudgeon

[MrPeabody]

Originally Posted by Mike Mercury

the US conversion to metric...

Because of the lack of an atmosphere on the moon, there is nothing to filter the infrared rays from the sun and scientists say the flag we left there is by now bleached to a pure white with all the colors gone.

So, thousands of years from now an alien civilization visiting our moon will think the French landed there first.

[kvozel]

With metric you could claim that your male member is 152.4 mm.

[Milton Fox]

[mrvette]

Originally Posted by Milton Fox

Out of 3 sizeable drawers full of nutz and boltz.....two drawers in my tool box, one pan on a shelf, and 3 full 3 gallon buckets of bolts....only ONE bucket is clearly marked METRIC......course this goes back to when I was a kid yet....some 60 years.....

when I can't find a fastener to fit, you KNOW it's RARE!!!

[m and t's77]

Because metric just doesn't roll off the tongue in a lot of cases.

YouTube

[JRD77VET]

Originally Posted by TxAg

Metric sure is easier to use on a day-to-day basis.

I know for a fact you aren't a machinist with that comment.

Conversion must be done to make parts to size on US built machines. European blueprint projection is backwards ( miss that on the print and you'll be making opposite hand parts )

~~~~~~~~~~~

I remember being in school and being told "we'll be completely converted over to the metric system by 1976"

All that happened was booze went from being sold in 1/5th of a gallon to liters

[Cybercowboy]

No scientist or engineer gives a crap what units you use.