A small victory for ration. I have lived the past ten years in Europe and the metric system is incomprehensible. Unless, I guess, you are a scientist or an EU dictator.
Joyce | 09.11.07 - 10:13 pm | #

Great post. It's very relevant to me right now as I work as an engineer, onsite at a Japanese supplier. They use millimeters for length measurements when we would use inches (25.4 mm/in), so even a very small detail part can get into triple digits.

It was also interesting buying a box of condoms here. Something about having the size of my ol' boy stated in millimeters makes me very uncomfortable...
Nate | Homepage | 09.11.07 - 10:49 pm | #

C'mon. Sure 84.9 grams is harder to remember than 3 oz. But in countries that use metric recipes don't ask for 84.9 grams. It would probably be rounded to 100 grams and the other ingredients adjusted accordingly as well.

And yeh, 1.7 metres seems to course grained to describe someone's height. Which is why it would typically be expressed as 170 centimetres (except that 5'3" is closer to 158 cm).

Having said that, if the Brits want to buy their beer in pints good luck to them. I'm more worried by the fact the damn stuff is warm!
Dan Hill | Homepage | 09.16.07 - 5:54 am | #