Well I have had a 34 year old Australian women staying for a week in Texas. There is no metric in Texas that one can speak of, although it is taught in the schools a lot.
She had no idea how far a mile was or what F temp was. It was interesting to see how far Aussies had come in the conversion process. She is both literate and numerate doing accounting work.
John
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From: "MightyChimp" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [USMA:29705] interesting question
Date: Sat, 8 May 2004 14:10:28 -0400
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I'm curious to know something about the "understanding" of units world-wide. Does anyone here have either knowledge, experience or feeling as to whether more people in metric countries understand and have a working knowledge or feel for FFU or more people in FFU-land have the same towards metric?
In other words, would an American be more likely to understand metric, or a foreigner more likely to understand FFU.
I've encountered immigrants to the US who give me funny looks if I use metric units and become resistant if I ask them to respond to me in metric. Many claim to have forgotten metric and understand only FFU. Some being in the US only a few years. Yet, when they speak with others of their kind they have no problem conversing in their native language. How could one not forget one's native language, yet forget SI. Can anyone here relate to this?
John Nichols BE, Ph.D. (Newcastle), MIE (Aust), Chartered Professional Engineer
Assistant Professor
Texas A&M University, Department of Construction Science
Langford AC Rm: A414 MD 3137, College Station, TX 77843-3137
Aut viam inveniam aut faciam.
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Web site : http://archone.tamu.edu/architecture/faculty/nichols/mainframe.html
