It may be true that people get used to grams and kilograms on packets, but that's only because they've been left with no choice on those items where English units have been completed removed.
That is the only way to get use to it. The cold turkey approach. If the whole world can adapt to metrication, the British should be able to too. Most people don't like change, but change is in many instances is necessary for progress and economy.
But most people I know don't think in metric units. They see 450g on a packet and say, "Ah, that's almost a pound," or they see a 1kg bag of sugar and think "A little over 2 lb."
Fine if they want to go through the hardship of memorising conversion factors and equivalents instead of trying to learn that 450 g means 450 g and a 1 kg means 1 kg. If anyone says metric is hard, what they really mean is they find it hard and a nuisance to have to back convert. End the need to back convert and the hardship vanishes.
Your profile says you're in Ohio, but I assume from the way you're talking about "our empire" that you're from Britain originally.
No, not at all. My ancestors are German and Slavic. I guess my feelings on the subject are that Germany and the Slavic nations metricated without a big fuss, and I can't seem to grasp why the British can't just accept it as they did. Let's face it, the British have the whole world speaking English, the least they can do is use the metric system.
English is the international language of business. Metric is the international language of measurement.
Keep this motto in mind.
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Britain's problem with metrication is really a problem of arrogance
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The problem most people have with metrication these days is not arrogance but the dictatorial way that it is being forced upon us against the wishes of the majority of the people.
When market traders are turned into criminals for selling a pound of beans, is it any wonder that public opinion is turning more and more against this whole harmonization process?
I disagree totally. It is arrogance. When a nation was once an empire and got use to the idea of pushing its culture and language on the whole world, it develops a lot of pride in it self. Such a people find it hard to compromise and accept other people's practices as valid.
Under British law, weights and measures are governed by the Weights and Measures Act(WMA). Do you agree? The law makers have the right to set measurement laws and prescribe what units are legal and what units are not via this act. Throughout history, the WMA has been amended to remove units that no longer served the country and added new ones when needed. This of course has always irked those who did not want to see units they considered useful as illegal and of course protested. But, time won out and the changes became accepted.
The latest changes to the WMA put more emphasis on the use of SI units and less on imperial. Thus, the sense that metric is being forced down people throats.
Market traders are not being turned into criminals for not using metric. That is the propaganda of the imperialists and their like. Those who have been charged have been charged for using non-legal scales. It is not legal under the WMA as of 2000-01-01 for a trading standards inspector to renew the validation certificate for a scale not calibrated in kilograms (or grams). A trader who uses a non certified scale for a sale is breaking the law. Even in the US, if a shop keeper used a non certified scale to sell goods, they would be fined and the scale confiscated.
It is not fair to those that comply with the laws for those that do not to get away without being charged. Apparantly, every court your "metric martyrs" appealed to agreed that the law was valid and the traders had an obligation to obey it.
No one is forced to use metric. A customer can still ask for a pound and until 2010, the trader weighs it out as 450 g. After 2010, the pound becomes a non-legal unit, meanings it no longer has legal status. Then traders can interpret of define the pound anyway they wish. Even to make it equal to 500 g if they chose. So, a customer asking for a pound after 2010 may be served a 500 g portion. This will harmonise the pound with the livre, libra and pfund. As these names are still used infrequently on the continent, they always refer to 500 g and thus are not a pound in the British sense.
If you feel metrication is unfair, then campaign to abolish the WMA and go back to the old ways when every trader decided for himself what a unit's value was. Of course, that would lead to wide scale mayhem and cheating. But, that is the way it was before the WMA came into existant. And outside of Britain, there were no standard units until metrication. And of course, as far as imperial units are concerned, that is what is going to happen again in 2010 when imperial units become non-legal in the UK.
But to get back to cables.....
I don't doubt that the U.S. could adapt to metric cable sizes. My point is that there is no need to mess up a perfectly good staandard which has been in use for decades just to satisfy the rest of the world.
Who says it is perfectly good? It's not just to satisy the rest of the world, but to make the US a team player, not the neighbourhood bully, who will only play with the rest of the kids if they agree to play by his rules. The US is finding out the hard way that the majority when pushed to far will rise up and say NO.
In our increasingly global economy, harmonisation is necessary for quicker understanding, ease of use and most important, for economy. Question is, would the US and UK be groaning so much if harmonisation was based on imperial units and not SI?