America has always thought of itself as being holier than thou. When you have a superiority complex it makes you look inferior all of a sudden if you adopt the practices of those you have always looked down upon. Now that America is no longer superior it is still hard to break the habit and belief. It would seem Americans would prefer to be dirt poor and unemployed than to adopt the ways of the "French".
Other than the obvious road signs and pint glasses in pubs, I see no other major uses of non-metric in the UK (the pint glass issue is somewhat a minor issue). Being a pro-metric person who wants total metrication you may see this as the UK not being as fully metric as you would like it. An anti-metric person would harp continuously on these two instances to claim the UK is not metric at all and ignore the 90+ % that is metric. Even road signs are not entirely non-metric in the UK. There are signs along highways that show kilometre distances that are ignored by the anti-metric fringe. There are signs that show metres but are marked off as yards (denied by the anti-metric fringe). And soon there will be height signs, possibly width signs too, that will show metres (in addition to out-dated units), something the anti-metric fringe is opposing. Even in pubs you can purchase products other than beer in metric amounts, such as wine and hard licquor. Products in the supermarkets are sold in metric only sizes and even the scales used to weigh your asked for goods are metric only. If you ask for an old amount you get a metric amount. You purchase petrol by the litre and hear weather reports in metric. Remnant uses of old unit names exist in every country and may continue to do so for a long time. You should at least be grateful that the UK is not in the same position as the US. I highly doubt the US will ever regain its pre-eminence even if it does metricate. No empire that has ever collapsed has ever returned to greatness. All have become insignificant and poor. Look at Iran (Persia), Iraq (Babylon), Egypt, Greece, Rome and the UK. ________________________________ From: John Frewen-Lord <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, July 8, 2010 9:52:52 AM Subject: [USMA:48093] attitudes Does America not adopt the metric system out of sheer bloody-mindedness? On the BP oil spill, this article I find very telling (mostly imperial unfortunately). The UK is not much better, at least at governmental level. The day America changes its attitude to the rest of the world (of which SI is a fundamental part) is the day that the US will regain its pre-eminence, not until. http://www.financialpost.com/Avertible+catastrophe/3203808/story.html#ixzz0sGacwW4e John F-L
