Hi Tom,
Don't forget that Metric was foisted upon us (as was federal
bilingualism) by Justin's father as a political move after he quelled
the FLQ Crisis.
It also was a sneaky way to get more tax revenue. That is, 1 penny/liter
gasoline tax seems more palatable than an extra 4.5 cents/gallon.
One other thing ... When I worked at Environment Canada (for Americans
think EPA+NOAA) (1980), I was writing FORTRAN (CDC and IBM) to decipher
weather-related data based upon MANOBS (a world-wide convention).
Believe it or not, EVERY item was measured in Imperial units (e.g.
inches of rain/snow, candlepowers of sunlight, windspeed in miles per
hour, atmospheric pressure in inches of mercury etc.). There was nary a
Meter, Joule, Newton nor Kilopascal.
Regards,
David
On 2020-07-21 10:57, Tom Russell wrote:
Do we really want to stick with a system of units that few of us understand,
with the
same name denoting different quantities depending on context?
I agree with Shmuel. As a Canadian I was always mildly amused that the
Americans had different quarts and gallons from us. They were wrong of course,
but in a naïve way. Their quart was 32 ounces and ours was 40, their gallon
was four quarts and so was ours. However I remember my shock when I discovered
the ounce is different as well. A US fluid ounce is 1.040843 of our fluid
ounces. That just seems so *wrong*. 😊
G. Tom Russell
“Stay calm. Be brave. Wait for the signs” — Jasper FriendlyBear
“… and remember to leave good news alone.” — Gracie HeavyHand
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