Michael,
I think Megan reacted to your metricating a baby. If you had metricated
a purchase of kumquats or the area to be occupied by some new linoleum
tiles, I don't think she would reacted as viciously. I understand that,
even in some metric countries, babies are WOMBATs at birth. Somehow,
people think the humanity of birth is taken away when the child's units
of mass/weight are stated in SI. When it comes to the celebration of a
new baby, pounds and ounces seem to be appropriately warm and fuzzy,
while kilograms and grams seem to be madly scientific, or, controlled
substance contraband (Flying into Los Angeleez, bringing in a couple of
keys) .
Thank you for posting this. It is a very important issue in our quest
for U.S. metrication. I try to be prepared for reactions like this, but
the ugly head of metrophobia surfaces so quickly upon mention of metric
in the U.S. that I surely do have to be bit prepared when I make a
metric remark. When I do it, I often am made to feel as if I am one of
the African American students who first sat at the Woolworth's lunch
counter down south in 1960.
I would that metric is as simple as our decimal dollars and cents---or,
would Megan like to return to the pounds, shillings, and pence of our
colonial days? Your goal with encounters like this is to appear to
explain this as a matter of fact, and not as a lecture, so the recipient
will feel, "Gee, where I have I been? Do my friends know this?"
Although we in the U.S. do use the metric system,we don't use it often
enough, and the result is that we misunderstand it, not fail to
understand it. The solution to misunderstanding is education. That's
why USMA supports the teaching of the metric system exclusively (i.e.,
no more teaching inch-pound units) in America's schools. If Congress
says metric is preferred for commerce, it should be preferred for
learning as well.
Paul
Michael Palumbo wrote:
Has anyone else had something like this happen to them?
Last week, my coworker's wife had a child, and we did the "guess the
gender and weight" contest that we always do in our office.
I guessed an even 3000 grams, and was the closest; the baby was 2981
grams. I had to translate the numbers for a few people, but no one
really minded that I submitted my answer in metric.
Last night, I was recalling this story to my friend Megan while in the
car, and her reaction to it was *this* shy of violent. She began
screaming at me, telling me how much of a (insert various four letters
words here) I am for using a system that no one else understands. Her
basic points were, if I ascertained them correctly in between her
ranting:
- "No one" understands the metric system, therefore it's off-putting
for me to use it.
- It's "extremely rude" to speak in a manner that people don't
understand.
- It's "moronic" and stinks of me just trying to "be different and
weird for the sake of being different and weird".
I told her that I wasn't going to listen to her insult me, dropped her
at her house, and left.
I cannot, for the life of me, understand that type of reaction. My
office-mates, even when they don't directly understand it, have a
pretty good idea of what I'm talking about. Rather than try to learn
something new, Megan's reaction is what I fear may be typical of many
people in this country. Either you act like everyone else, or you'll
be branded a nut-case. Never mind that most of the world uses this
system, never mind that the foreigners in this country use it, never
mind that the doctor who delivered the baby used it, *I* am not
supposed to because it makes her think, and she can't handle that.
Regards,
-Mike
--
Paul Trusten, R.Ph.
Acting Secretary
The Pharmacy Alliance
Midland TX 79707-2872 USA
+1(432)528-7724
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/ThePharmacyAlliance
