Re: US cultural conventions

From: Frank Sledge (knarf@bellsouth.net)
Date: Sat Jun 26 1999 - 13:26:55 EDT


I prefer the traditional units because they refer to
things rooted in human reality. My foot is about
1 foot long, and a pint of water weighs about a pound.
Meters, grams and liters are just nerdy abstractions
with no connection to human experience -- which is,
I suspect, why geeks prefer them.

I'm all for an international system of measurement to
be used as an auxiliary, an adjunct to our local
cultural units, rather than a replacement for them --
as Esperanto is supposed to be an adjunct to our
local languages rather than a replacement. But this
international system should be based on human things
and natural phenomena -- a unit of length equal to
average human height, for example.



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jul 10 2001 - 17:20:47 EDT