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| why is the US not Metric |
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| vk6zgo:
--- Quote from: KL27x on December 16, 2019, 08:53:54 pm ---The majority of people who live and move to America are completely fine using both imperial and metric. The ENGLISH speaking metric-only world is probably the most pissed off. English-speaking media, is fairly well dominated by imperial units, still (and it's not just America doing it).* Especially upset, I imagine, are the citizens of countries which changed under the assumption that the entire world would use ONLY metric within 10 years. Like they were saying even in American schools in the 70's, at least. You can see this even in the road signs the metricated countries use. It's completely stupid (IMO) to change units and not even put the new units on your sign. The red circle thingie is the same red circle sign they use in UK! At least if you drive from France to UK, the numbers are lower (and safer). In Australia they put little gold signs saying "KM" on the new kilometer distance markers. But.... They paid more money to go and REMOVE them after "a sufficient transition period." Why? You put them up? They are correct? They add information? Why not leave them? And Americans are stupid. --- End quote --- You really do delight in making stuff up,don't you? What really happened was that we took the numbers off all the mileposts, replacing those at 5 mile intervals with 8km markers. As roads were upgraded, & in many cases, widened, the posts had to be removed. The new posts were at 5km intervals---Australians are smart enough that they can count by fives. --- Quote --- Australia did the metrication right on the heels of the huge success and improvement of decimal money. I think they might confuse the benefits of the one with the other. (Metric better. Yes. Daily life? Show me what that did for you other than give you a migraine and fits when you watch TV). --- End quote --- Name one reason why metrication would do that? --- Quote --- America changed to decimal currency more than 200 years ago. And Americans are acutely aware of the additional benefits of changing to metric for daily life. It's... not much. And there's no point, in the majority opinion. *The visibility of imperial in media is exaggerated due to artistic reasons. We like to argue that Manny Pacman Pacquio is "pound for pound" the best boxer in history. We use imperial units in our language. Imperial units thus pop up more frequently in English speaken media than metric units do from metric english speaking country's media. And we're sorry your governments lied to your about the 10-year thing. If you watch American football, you hear the word "yard" every play. --- End quote --- Who the hell would want to? --- Quote --- In basketball, Curry is hitting a "33 footer." Here, "footer" is a noun meaning a shot, but also denoting the units. I dunno how you even would do that with meters, in english. That "-er" on the end limits it. In Australia, if you ever do watch sports, is this reversed? Do soccer commentators frequently state distance of a goal in meters? --- End quote --- The ground is specified in metres, but metres or feet just don't come up in commentary, any more than they do in European broadcasts of the same game. --- Quote --- Do they state long 3 pointers in basketball in meters? --- End quote --- I've never heard any great use of either feet or metres in TV commentary, pretty obviously, because you can see the play, & make your own estimation of the distance. On the radio, it may be different, but I don't listen to basketball on the radio! --- Quote --- Because in America, if I watch soccer? I can watch an entire match without hearing the word meter. This makes me curious if Australian commentators and sports fans use the word "meter" much less frequently than ours use "feet" just due to the names. I wonder if "meter" somehow is not as "flowy" or more distracting or less immersive in some subtle way, due to linguistics of english. In American sports commentating, the units are all over the place. I mean commentators have to talk, almost nonstop. And the imperial units are maybe easy on the tongue and ears. :-// --- End quote --- I don't think they ever used either feet or metres that much. It could just be that US fans of such games became used to the use of units in the days of radio broadcasts & the commentators carried it over into TV, until it became a standard way of doing things. In Oz, most of the sporting broadcasts in the old days revolved around Cricket, "Australian Football", & Rugby League, where there wasn't a lot of use for distances.(Except for horse racing which was the sole user of Furlongs). In "Australian Football" (maybe better known to you in the form of AFL), if a player does something particularly reprehensible, his immediate opponent on the other team may be awarded a free kick from 50 metres closer to the goalposts his team are aiming for. In that case, the commentator will use the dreaded "metre" word. I don't think it used to be "50 yards", because as far as as I can remember, the rule didn't exist back in the day. In Cricket, if the batsman hits a "boundary", it doesn't matter what the distance is measured in, that's still the equivalent of 4 "runs", & if it goes over the fence into the crowd, 6 runs! |
| bsfeechannel:
--- Quote from: KL27x on December 16, 2019, 01:03:02 am ---We know this, but we don't CARE. --- End quote --- We know very well that you don't care. But we needed to cut through the road-sign bullshit and make you say it explicitly. Now you understand why we like rstofer's replies. He doesn't try to pretend that the resistance against metrication is based on some sound logic or noble cause. And that saves us a lot of digital ink. |
| KL27x:
re:vk6zgo last post: I read that word for word, the other day. About the gold km signs being removed. I'm sorry that was not exactly right. I also read that Australia put up all their speedo signs covered up. And then unveiled them all within a couple weeks or so while taking the old ones down. I can't imagine that being practical in America. But maybe that was wrong, too? It's interesting the way your sports rarely use distances. We use them a lot. Maybe this is part of the reason you guys changed so completely. And even if watching on TV, it's useful to us. Cuz "watching" sports you still listen while getting a pint out of the fridge or going on about life. TBH, if I actually sit down to really watch a game, I often mute it. :) We talk about Damien Lillard's 40-foot series winner against OKC. In Paul George's face, IIRC. And Lamar Jackson's 84 rushing yard and 180 passing yards the other day. We use units all the time. And in some cases, you can appreciate just the numbers, even if you haven't seen it, yet. (Many of us degenerates essentially bet on fantasy leagues that go by "your" players' individual numbers). I'm imagining metric would not be useful in basketball so much. How many times can you say "drains it from 1 meter beyond the arc?" Until it actually rounds up to 2 meters? :) In fact, you never heard or say or think a "yard" in basketball. It's like we use an appropriate unit for the context? And it's mostly for comparison to previous memories and other records, so who cares if a yard or a foot is some weird fraction of a meter? The horse racing is one that bothers me, and I don't know why. I don't even watch horse racing, and it seems wrong to me that this archaic tradition of making animals run around a track, and which has such a long running continuous history, has changed. I totally understand if they change the way they describe it, commentate it, market it in metric. But to actually change the lengths of major races feels like a loss to me. :-// |
| vk6zgo:
--- Quote from: KL27x on December 17, 2019, 02:27:50 am ---re:vk6zgo last post: I read that word for word, the other day. About the gold km signs being removed. I'm sorry that was not exactly right. --- End quote --- They certainly didn't stick on separate "km" signs in Western Australia. What they did do, was to stick reflective tags with plain numbers on each 5mile/8km post. The old mile markings were black paint on white poles, which were costly ---the stickers were "cheap as dirt". They did the same thing in South Australia. Maybe they did something weird in one of the other States, but I very much doubt it. --- Quote --- I also read that Australia put up all their speedo signs covered up. And then unveiled them all within a couple weeks or so while taking the old ones down. I can't imagine that being practical in America. But maybe that was wrong, too? --- End quote --- It wasn't practical in Australia, either, as many of our speed signs are out in the backblocks, hundreds of km from "civilisation". You might send a couple of blokes out there with some spanners & a bunch of speed signs & replace a bunch of the old ones, using the same posts & bolts.-----but cover them up ---Nah! Even in the suburbs, the covers would be a magnet to "yoofs" who would delight in tearing them off. You would have had to be living in a cave not to know Metrication day was coming, so why would the authorities care?---& they didn't. The only time I've seen signs covered up is if roadworks are occurring, or if there is a major modification to the road layout happening. If this was on the "Net", can you give me a link, so I can reproach them for misleading my friend KL27x? --- Quote --- It's interesting the way your sports rarely use distances. We use them a lot. Maybe this is part of the reason you guys changed so completely. And even if watching on TV, it's useful to us. Cuz "watching" sports you still listen while getting a pint out of the fridge or going on about life. TBH, if I actually sit down to really watch a game, I often mute it. :) We talk about Damien Lillard's 40-foot series winner against OKC. In Paul George's face, IIRC. And Lamar Jackson's 84 rushing yard and 180 passing yards the other day. We use units all the time. And in some cases, you can appreciate just the numbers, even if you haven't seen it, yet. (Many of us degenerates essentially bet on fantasy leagues that go by "your" players' individual numbers). I'm imagining metric would not be useful in basketball so much. How many times can you say "drains it from 1 meter beyond the arc?" Until it actually rounds up to 2 meters? :) In fact, you never heard or say or think a "yard" in basketball. It's like we use an appropriate unit for the context? And it's mostly for comparison to previous memories and other records, so who cares if a yard or a foot is some weird fraction of a meter? The horse racing is one that bothers me, and I don't know why. I don't even watch horse racing, and it seems wrong to me that this archaic tradition of making animals run around a track, and which has such a long running continuous history, has changed. I totally understand if they change the way they describe it, commentate it, market it in metric. But to actually change the lengths of major races feels like a loss to me. :-// --- End quote --- They have had stranger changes in the past. In Britain, some places, the horses run clockwise, & others anti-clockwise. Most countries are similar, but in the USA, they all run anticlockwise. It seems that the race tracks in Colonial america ran clockwise, & in a outburst of anti-British sentiment, it was decided to run the other direction.(A bit like the way you decided to drive your carts on the right hand side of the road, like your friends, the French). There were several attempts to reintroduce clockwise running, but after some initial success, they ultimately petered out. |
| KL27x:
--- Quote ---They have had stranger changes in the past. In Britain, some places, the horses run clockwise, & others anti-clockwise. Most countries are similar, but in the USA, they all run anticlockwise. --- Quote ---It seems that the race tracks in Colonial america ran clockwise, & in a outburst of anti-British sentiment, it was decided to run the other direction.(A bit like the way you decided to drive your carts on the right hand side of the road, like your friends, the French). --- End quote --- --- Quote ---There were several attempts to reintroduce clockwise running, but after some initial success, they ultimately petered out. --- End quote --- --- End quote --- I can believe this. And it shows that sometimes there are historical factors involved in making even relatively small changes. I wonder if Australians held some anti-British sentiment when it changed to metric overnight? I don't recall any anti-Brit feelings in US in my lifetime. It was all about the Soviet Union. Seems like Britain is USA's sidekick, by our era. Maybe if metric was making the rounds in 1776, America would have changed more completely. |
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