Re: Ghastly Mess (was A Ransome Moment)


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Posted by RichardG on September 16, 2004 at 18:01:35 from 212.137.34.25 user RichardG.

In Reply to: Re: A Ransome Moment... posted by Peter Ceresole on September 13, 2004 at 23:03:13:

"...with the same sense of relief that I felt when we adopted the metric system and stopped thinking in that ghastly mess of Imperial units."

They may have been a pain if you wanted to add them up or divide them by ten, but imperial units were generally based on some natural unit of measurement - a foot was based on what its name suggests, whereas a metre (or meter for the US readers) was some idea of the French revolutionaries based on what they thought was the circumference of the earth. A pint was based on the exact quantity of draught ale needed to quench an Englishman's thirst - half a litre is not enough, a litre is too much. The metric system is itself based on the number of fingers & thumbs possessed by the average person, whereas a system based on twelve would have been a great deal more sensible in terms of easy divisibility. And how do you reckon 360 degrees fits into the metric system and is any easier to remember than the points of the compass ?



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