Remembering the changeover, when the United States went metric

By Jack Brummet, Social Mores & Customs Editor

The U.S. went metric roughly 43 years ago.  We didn't quite get there. 

I remember diligently studying (circa 1963-64), the metric system in preparation for the big changeover. There would be no more pints or acres or inches. All the kids in school  received a small bundle of wooden blocks corresponding to various metric length and volume measures. And we had numerous class sessions devoted to hammering in the new way.  Yes, the U.S. was slated to go totally metric 43 years ago. However, we were somehow unable to shuck the customary US units system (our version of the Imperial system).   Was it business that killed the change?  Or us? 

You may also remember JFK's physical fitness initiative. The entire country would be buffed up by about 1970. Of all those initiatives, the only one that appeared to have caught fire was the move toward hydration. We were told to drink eight glasses of water a day without fail. OK, we may be fat and unable to determine what a metre or millilitre is, but we are well-hydrated. We won that one!  Everywhere you go people are carrying water bottles, plastic, metal, Nalgene, and even in Camelback packs with special bladders and hoses, so you can drink while moving. 

Much is made of the imperial system's basis of the size of a foot, or the distance between your knuckles. And yet the metric system is based on the speed of an electron, I think. Does that make more sense than the distance between some emperor's knuckles?

I wonder why have we not converted, or tried to convert, to metric for our measure of years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds? Why was it so important to convert linear and volume measures, but not the temporal ones?

As far as I can tell, some foods and fluids are sold my metric measure, but not much else.  You buy saffron by the gram, but other spices are sold by the ounce.  But one industry made the conversion (mostly):::::::::::::::::::::::::Hootch!  Gargle!  Whiz! Wine! Whiskey!   Beer is sold by the fluid ounce, but whiskey and wine: totally metric. The formerly beloved fifth or pint of whiskey is now the slightly smaller 3/4 of a litre bottle. Those little bottles of wine you buy on the airplane: 187.5 millilitres (or, 1/4 of a 750 millilitre bottle [the "new fifth"]. So, we may have really sucked on our adoption of metric measures, but the drunks have it down pat, at least on the fluid measures.  However, the liquid a bartender pours from a metric bottle almost always goes into a shot glass measuring ounces. 

'Time' Switches To The Metric System - In 2007, Time managing editor Rick Stengel attempted to force the U.S. towards the metric system.   A memo informed writers and editors that from then on, all measurements will be expressed in "both imperial and metric equivalents." Clearly, Stengel is waging a losing battle in a war we lost decades ago.  I haven't checked up on Time in these last few years to see if they have held steady or not...

Here is Stengel's memo on taking Time metric:

"Time is going global. And metric. Starting with the next issue, we will provide both imperial and metric equivalents for distance, weight, volume and temperature. (We've been doing this for some time in our graphics. Now we'll extend this to the general text as well.) This will help ensure that one text works for all of our international editions."

"In most cases, we'll use the imperial measure first and then show the metric equivalent in parentheses: five ft. (1.5 m); 170 lbs. (77 kg); 5 gallons (19 liters); 98.6 degrees F (37 degrees Celsius)."

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