Reader Mark Spahn sent me a link to a discussion about the metric system here. Most Americans seem quite hostile to it, since the English system has units that are more geared to everyday life instead of being a theoretical construct. However, one reason I don’t like our system is that it is cumbersome to use when cooking for one person. Recipes always assume the cook is cooking for at least two, if not more, so one must divide the measurements in order to get something reasonable. So, one must remember that there are 3 teaspoons in a tablespoon, 16 tablespoons in a cup, 4 cups in a quart, 4 quarts in a gallon, etc. But these aren’t easily remembered, and if this were a decimal system, then they would all be based on 10. It reminds me of the silly line in the first Harry Potter book: “Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and 29 Knuts to a Sickle, it’s easy enough.” Right.
Incidentally, when we lived in England for a couple months back in 1992, I remember going to an outdoor market and asking for a pound of cherries. The seller had no problem with that, even though officially they were using the metric system.
And here’s an amusing incident. A woman from Germany moved to our area, and when she went to get her driver’s license, she was asked her height and weight. These presented problems since she didn’t know the conversion factors, nor did anyone else. The height could be estimated, but what about the weight? After some confusion, the clerk finally simply asked all the people in the room, “How much do you think she weighs?” The woman said that the men actually guessed less than the women did. Heh.
I think the resistance is cultural, in that the SI system is seen as some type of globalist agenda threatening American Exceptionalism. As an engineer, I absolutely hate the English system because the unit conversions are absolute crap. While the SI system is just as arbitrary, it is something the rest of the world got right IMO.
Posted by: vandiver49 | 10/30/2017 at 07:52 AM
Yes, I like the unit conversions of the SI system, and I remember being particularly impressed as a teenager when I learned that a liter of water weighed a kilogram. I have no idea how much a gallon of water weighs.
Posted by: John Pepple | 10/30/2017 at 08:14 AM