2000-12-07

Another point to make is that Americans are not really familiar with yards.
Feet is the common unit used.  The only times yards are used, other than
football, is when something is transliterated from metres.  Changing words
does not make the meaning clearer.

John


There are none more hopelessly enslaved then those who falsely believe they
are free!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)


 -----Original Message-----
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
 Behalf Of Norman Werling
 Sent: Thursday, 2000-12-07 09:01
 To: U.S. Metric Association
 Cc: US Metric Assn.
 Subject: [USMA:9586] Morning Edition-NPR of 2000 December 7 at approx.
 08:30 EST



 Morning Edition-NPR:

 I listened to Eric Weiner's report about a man who moved from Tokyo to a
 provincial town to avoid noise only to be exposed to a warning system with
 sirens 100 "yards" from his house.

 You and I both know that this was reported as being 100 "meters" from his
 new home.

 Why won't you simply report this as 100 meters instead of changing
 it to the
 100 yards of the King George III Colonial measure?  Everyone knows about
 swimmers and runners doing 100 meters, so why do you assume that everyone
 does not understand meters?

 The USA stands alone looking in from the outside at the 95% of the world
 which daily uses the International System of units (SI-metric).  There is
 absolutely no chance that we are going to change the rest of the world in
 this regard.  This is (or will be in 2001) the 21st century and we need to
 join the rest of the world in using modern units of measure.

 After all, they have adopted English in many ways for its practical uses.
 We need to adopt SI-metric for its practical uses.

 Norman V. Werling
 1240 Hunters Drive
 Stone Mountain., GA 30083
 404-292-9328


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