I think it's probably true that most Americans don't understand how metric the UK now is (despite the persisting muddle), let alone how much more metric Australia is (or even the extent to which Canada is metric despite the large presence of Imperial there, too).
My hunch is that most of the perception that American's have of the UK is through television, particularly through British shows broadcast here in the States. Unfortunately, it seems that British producers (including the BBC) go out of their way to use Imperial on the shows broadcast in the USA, whereas the same show broadcast in the UK might actually have used much more metric if show to the home audience. In this way the extent to which the UK has metricated continues to be masked by the British accomodation (or American muscle -- or both) that slaps a veneer of Imperial on the UK television products distributed over here. Bloody shame, if you ask me ... :-( Ezra ----- Original Message ----- From: "J. Ward" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, October 24, 2004 2:22 PM Subject: [USMA:31342] Re: Metric in the U.K. > Hi David, > > Your comments point out the humor in the following argument some friends > made in a recent conversation: "England doesn't use the metric system, > so why should we?" I don't think they believed me when I explained that > on the contrary, measurement in the U.K. is predominantly metric! > > J.
