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why is the US not Metric
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tooki:

--- Quote from: Tepe on November 25, 2019, 10:56:55 am ---
--- Quote from: tooki on November 25, 2019, 12:12:03 am ---NO COUNTRY IN THE WORLD IS 100% METRIC. Even the "fully" metric countries use non-metric stuff here and there.

--- End quote ---
Curiously it tends to be "your" non-metric stuff that creep in (like inches for the sizes of TV screens), not our own pre-metric units.


--- End quote ---
Ok, so why do you have them at all?

The US didn’t force them on you.

Could it be that you adopted a US standard voluntarily long ago, and now the cost of switching is too great?


That argument reminds me of how Europeans often whine about English words creeping into their languages, often with a disparaging remark implying that the US and UK somehow have forced them to do so. As a native English speaker, I assure you, we have ZERO interest in you borrowing our words and mangling them. But moreover, it’s just not how it works: word borrowing happens by pulling words from other languages, not by those languages pushing them.

Similarly, there are essentially no manufactured products from USA that the rest of the world is dependent on; there’s invariably a substitute manufacturer somewhere else. And the US certainly can’t force you to buy them. And this has always been the case: no one has ever forced you to purchase from USA. So if you did, and that product was in customary units, it was your choice to buy it.



--- Quote from: Tepe on November 25, 2019, 10:59:02 am ---
--- Quote from: tooki on November 25, 2019, 10:49:54 am ---Inch pipe threads are common, for example.

--- End quote ---
But it is your inches, not our old ones...

Our inch, for example, was 26.1545 mm.

--- End quote ---
As for why US inches stuck around and local European ones didn’t: the US is a huge single market. It is big enough that economies of scale within that market make producing to US inches cost effective.

Wanna save some money through standardization? Eliminate the half dozen different 230V AC plugs used in Europe. Oh, but that’d cost a lot of money, and the transition period would be difficult, and the benefits clearly not worth it, or else you’d do it voluntarily.  ::)

Or get rid of the various languages and just impose one metric language. That’d simplify a lot of things. (I’ve worked as a technical translator, so I’m acutely aware of how very expensive it is to produce the same thing in multiple languages.)

Funny how Europeans whine about Brussels decreeing how everything has to be the same, stomping on their national freedoms, while ragging on the US for not complying...

(Note that I’m only naming and shaming Europeans because I happen to live in Europe, so I witness these various arguments all the time. I’m sure if I lived elsewhere, I’d have equivalent arguments.)


Does this help elucidate how silly the arguments against the US’s incomplete metrication are?
KL27x:

--- Quote from: Tepe on November 25, 2019, 10:59:02 am ---
--- Quote from: tooki on November 25, 2019, 10:49:54 am ---Inch pipe threads are common, for example.

--- End quote ---
But it is your inches, not our old ones...

Our inch, for example, was 26.1545 mm.

--- End quote ---
Small statistical sample, maybe. Bsfeechannel doesn't wear a flag. But a lot of the met-oric seems to be curiously stronger from former imperial countrymen?

I can imagine your pain, Tepe, seeing inches that are not YOUR inches. That doubly sucks that you assimilated to a superior system only to continue to see the WRONG inches, everywhere!

I'm being serious. I'm sorry you lost your inches.

added:

Now, IF you guys had said, hey! Let's totally adopt metric. But let's also continue to use inches, if and where we want. But only let's agree on ONE inch. Let's define it by metric?     Would you care if your 26.xx mm inch was changed to something very close in order to compromise with the other nations? We truncated our inch to more easily conform to metric. So our inch isn't the right inch, either. But we said F it. It's close enough. We essentially banished our own dirty inch to internal legal purposes, so as to shield the world from it.

So if you ever wanted to cheat on metric and use our what is now the last remaining internationally recognized inch - the one that we (as a world; not just the US; and not just that other country-not-Guyana; but also the metric crowd which somehow knows 20x as many imperial units as Americans) have so far managed to keep from extinction for w/e the reasons you want to believe - you are welcome. It's not our inch; it's just the modern inch. We like to just say inch, but you guys can call it tower inches or w/e makes you feel more comfortable.
Tepe:

--- Quote from: tooki on November 25, 2019, 11:20:28 am ---
--- Quote from: Tepe on November 25, 2019, 10:56:55 am ---Curiously it tends to be "your" non-metric stuff that creep in (like inches for the sizes of TV screens), not our own pre-metric units.

--- End quote ---
Ok, so why do you have them at all?

--- End quote ---

Beats me :)


--- Quote from: tooki on November 25, 2019, 11:20:28 am ---The US didn’t force them on you.

--- End quote ---
I didn't say it did. I guess it crept in due to the combined weight of the British Empire and the US in trade.


--- Quote from: tooki on November 25, 2019, 11:20:28 am ---That argument reminds me of how Europeans often whine about English words creeping into their languages, often with a disparaging remark implying that the US and UK somehow have forced them to do so. As a native English speaker, I assure you, we have ZERO interest in you borrowing our words and mangling them. But moreover, it’s just not how it works: word borrowing happens by pulling words from other languages, not by those languages pushing them.

--- End quote ---
Exactly! That English is the main source at the moment just goes to show the great prestige it has at the moment. Before that, in these parts, it was French, German, and Low German. That's just how it works.


--- Quote from: tooki on November 25, 2019, 11:20:28 am ---Wanna save some money through standardization? Eliminate the half dozen different 230V AC plugs used in Europe. Oh, but that’d cost a lot of money, and the transition period would be difficult, and the benefits clearly not worth it, or else you’d do it voluntarily.  ::)

--- End quote ---
Here that is being done in the weirdest way: We are now allowed a choice of Danish, French, and German type outlets...  :wtf:


--- Quote from: tooki on November 25, 2019, 11:20:28 am ---Does this help elucidate how silly the arguments against the US’s incomplete metrication are?

--- End quote ---
I am not arguing for or against metrication of the US.
Tepe:

--- Quote from: KL27x on November 25, 2019, 11:27:26 am ---I can imagine your pain, Tepe, seeing inches that are not YOUR inches. That doubly sucks that you assimilated to a superior system only to continue to see the WRONG inches, everywhere!

I'm being serious. I'm sorry you lost your inches.

--- End quote ---
It just a curiosity. I don't think anybody cares :)
Metrication here was done by a law passed in 1907 with the period 1910-1916 to adopt the new system. Since then, the old measures have died out.



1 mil = 4 fjerdingveje = 40 kabellængder = 2.400 roder = 4.000 favne = 4.000 skår = 12.000 alen.
1 alen = 2 fod = 8 håndsbredder = 24 tommer = 128 bygkorn = 288 linier = 3.456 skrupler.
bsfeechannel:

--- Quote from: tooki on November 25, 2019, 10:49:54 am ---What I dispute is the arrogant claims that the rest of the world is 100% metric, which isn’t true.

--- End quote ---

The rest of the world IS 100% metric and you know that's true. You can hear echos of imperial or customary units "here and there", but you know darn well that imperial outside the US is DEAD.

The confidence of the world in metric units is such that many countries banned imperial by force of law, in other words, imperial is illegal.

Imperial has no future whatsoever, so do not maintain any illusions about it.
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