I can assure everyone that I didn't actually write the text of my original post, but simply copied&pasted from the website I found it on. Hence the reference to feet and inches. If I was the orginal author, it would have been metric!
John ----- Original Message ----- From: Jeremiah MacGregor To: U.S. Metric Association Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2009 3:54 PM Subject: [USMA:44155] Re: smoots They can be just as much fun when expressed as 170 cm instead of something not related to metric, wouldn't you agree? My point was that when we come across something like this we should be relating to it metrically. Describing it in inches and feet defeats the purpose of metrication. Jerry ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Carleton MacDonald <carlet...@comcast.net> To: U.S. Metric Association <usma@colostate.edu> Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2009 10:31:34 AM Subject: [USMA:44151] Re: smoots Because smoots are FUN!! Carleton From: owner-u...@colostate.edu [mailto:owner-u...@colostate.edu] On Behalf Of Jeremiah MacGregor Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2009 10:05 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:44146] Re: smoots By the same token, we can define a smoot as 170 cm. Every 10 smoots is then 17 m. If we are going to promote metric here, then why mention non-metric words? Jerry ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: John Frewen-Lord <j...@frewston.plus.com> To: U.S. Metric Association <usma@colostate.edu> Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2009 5:33:12 AM Subject: [USMA:44142] smoots Jerry talked about US isolationism in terms of measurements. Not only the US as a whole - how about this one (tongue in cheek) from Boston, MA: "Smoots" on the Harvard Bridge MIT students are world-famous for their brains and creativity, and the invention of the "Smoot" as unit of measure is no exception. In 1958, the pledge class of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity marked the length of the Harvard Bridge (which goes to MIT) using pledge Oliver Smoot as a measuring tool. For the record, Smoot was 5 feet 7 inches tall, and the bridge is 364.4 Smoots (plus an ear) long. The bridge is marked with colored lines to mark every 10 Smoots, and the markers are painted on the sidewalk on the outbound side of the bridge. Location: Over the Charles River between Back Bay and Cambridge
