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Why Not Metric?

Via Rob Farley, "Dean Dad" wonders why the United States never adopted the metric system (although you see weird exceptions crop up all the time, like with 2-liter Coke bottles). Indeed, it's a real problem. I doubt it has a large economic impact on the country—a calculator will convert back and forth between the two systems, so I doubt manufacturers and engineers care very much—but it's certainly absurd to force everyone to remember that there are 1,760 yards in a mile and so forth. But apparently inches and yards are "manly" units of measurement, and that's why we have them:

Looking back, I sorta remember the backlash against metric occurring as part of the backlash against an inchoate sense that America was in decline. In the late 70’s, there was a weird, curdled-populist anger that manifested itself in CB radios and Proposition 13 and Ronald Reagan…. Anyway, the metric system at that time came off as a sort of effete, Euro-Modernist import, shoved down the throats of Real Americans by the same smug coastal elites who got all self-righteous about banning smoking and conserving energy.

Two of Ronald Reagan's early acts as president, as it turned out, were to overturn a law encouraging schools to teach kids the metric system, and to disband and defund the U.S. Metric Board. But then in 1988, apparently, there was a change of heart and Congress decided to require all federal agencies to go metric. The military, meanwhile, has long relied solely on the metric system, because when lives are on the line no one wants to be racking their brains wondering how many quarts to a gallon. But no one wants to force the rest of the country to follow suit. We'd have to throw out all our measuring cups, after all.

Those facts, by the way, all come from this handy metric timeline. I also was going to point out that when I lived in Ireland, all the speed limits were oddly designated in miles, but apparently that's no longer true as of 2005. Right now the only other countries that haven't officially adopted the system are Burma and Liberia, so the United States is in good company I guess.

Posted by Bradford Plumer on 05/26/06 at 1:29 PM | E-mail | Print | Digg this | de.licio.us

Comments

Last time I looked, we had miles, inches, yards etc in the UK.

Posted by: philiph35 on 05/26/06 at 8:22 PM

Brad,

The, er, post in question was by Robert Farley, not by Scott Lemieux.

This has happened twice in the past two weeks; perhaps I need to make the "posted by" larger and more readable...

Posted by: Rob on 05/28/06 at 5:50 PM

Danke.

Posted by: Rob on 05/29/06 at 5:20 AM

Just because we have ten fingers does not make the metric system simpler. 12 fingers would have been a better number, without using a calculator divide 10 by 3, 4, or 6.Now do the same with the number 12. I work in feet and inches and find that 10,100, or 1000 are clumsy numbers to work with often resulting in massive numbers beyond the decimal place instead of simple fractions. Metric is ok for engineers and designers but in the workaday world feet,inches, yards and miles are just plain easier to deal with.

Posted by: Mark Kyle on 05/30/06 at 4:51 AM

Yes, I've heard all the problems with using metric for measurement in the world of inches and feet. Frankly, it's only people who never serously tried it that complain about it. Come on...You really prefer 32nds, 16ths and 8ths? I guess if you pick your own base to argue from then anything is possible. to me it's a ridicuous argument.

I work in metric at work constantly and it is such a joy. Then I used to come home and work on my house in english units and cuss all weekend. I finally bought metric rulers, tapes etc and have been very happy since. english units are bunk.

Posted by: Tim Morken on 05/30/06 at 9:22 PM

I won't ask for clarification of why '10,100 and 1000' are 'clumsy' numbers, but 1/2, 1/4, 1/8,etc and 12, 16, 32 are elegant.
In the early 1980's, I was heavily involved in an attempt to switch engineering and manufacturing in a GE plant over to metric. The task was overwhelming in getting all drawings, tolerances, CNC codes, tooling and people's minds re-calibrated to a new system
Then of course came the idea that we would have to dump lots of our tools and instuments, gages, meters, etc etc.

After a few years, we just stopped trying.

Regards.

Dave Leo

Posted by: dave leo on 05/31/06 at 10:26 AM

I agree with Tim Morken in that the use of metric is a joy, as I have discovered in 1975. In 1983, my body measurements went metric, in 1992, my weight went metric, in 1984, I began recording temperature in Celsius. My GPS is set to metric units.

Posted by: Thomas Bailey on 05/31/06 at 7:05 PM

Why is preserving the linguistic diversity of the world considered a worthy goal, but preserving measurement diversity nothing but an American barbarism? I appreciate the English system for its natural connection with the proportions of the human body and common tools and phenomena; as opposed to metric's sterile obediance to the number 10 and obscure scientific calibrations. Since Americans benefit by speaking the international language, we seem the ideal candidates to suffer the minor inconvenience of preventing the extinction of a traditional system of measurement. I'll switch to metric units when the French all switch to English language.

Posted by: Brock Filer on 05/31/06 at 9:23 PM