In researching my previous posting to USMA 17678 I came across the following which is still relevant to the situation in USA. Martin, tThe French Minister of Commerce in 1812 said (I translate):
"I must say that the legislator of 1812 has not understood sufficiently that it was the habits of the people and not their needs that have resisted the admission of the metric system. If human needs are rather permanent that legislation can not modify, it is not the same their habits, pure accidents, that it is always possible to overcome and dominate after more or less time and more or less effort....Law has no effect on ordinary language, but it is by restraining official language that ordinary language to adopt it. Before the vote in the Assembly Martin added: "To arrive at its use the law needs, not advice, but orders. Laws are not made in order to give advice." Joseph B.Reid 17 Glebe Road West Toronto M5P 1C8 TEL. 416-486-6071
