h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Buncha cheese-eating surrender monkeys".

RF

And damned tasty cheese it is, too.

Mmh, French cheese

And we would also have imposed much better and logical Decimal Time worldwide if it had'nt been for those meddling kids

And aside, I don't believe either that it is acceptable to routinely disparage the French, no matter how tempting

(a) The French: In my experience, they are efficient and good at organising, if a bit vague in their statements sometimes. This as opposed to the Germans, who can make clear statements, but have trouble getting things organised. I think carefully before disparaging the French. Am more likely to have a go at Germans.

(b) Metric: I can cope with both, and I learnt both at school. But, despite living in Metric-Land for over 30 years, I agree with (was it van?) whoever said that it's not natural - the imperial system is easier to visualise and a surprising number of things are 30 cm, or 2.5 cm long, (....or wide, or thick).

The Americans went half-heartedly metric some time ago. They didn't adopt the metric system: they just metricised the imperial system.

Hence the decimal places of an inch (which is just wrong: fractions of an inch should be in halves, quarters, eighths, sixteenths, and thirty-twoths), the lack of stones, the US gallon, the US pint, and the US quart.

Why they couldn't have kept the imperial system or adopted the metric system instead of this silly mixing and matching I don't know. It's annoying.

TRiG.

well clearly they didn't go metric because they're an imperialist world power. Thought everyone knew that.

http://www.instantrimshot.com/

Was it Jean Paul Sartre that said, "Hell is being trapped in a room with your friends" or was it "Hell is other people?" Ahh, what does it matter? Everyone he hung out with was French.

Numbers already confuse them, changing to metric would be too hard to understand!!

If Imperial Measures was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!

Ma Fergusson - possibly!

btw swl - http://www.instantrimshot.com/
hours of fun!

"Hence the decimal places of an inch (which is just wrong: fractions of an inch should be in halves, quarters, eighths, sixteenths, and thirty-twoths), the lack of stones, the US gallon, the US pint, and the US quart."

I can't comment on the inches, but the US liquid measures pre-date the metric system. The size of the gallon as used in the US is the 'wine gallon' as standardised in 1707, when it was still part of Britain. This gallon held 128 fluid oz and, as a gallon is always 8 pints, gives a pint of 16 fluid oz. The Imperial gallon, as used in the UK, was standardised in 1824 and gives a pint of 20 fluid oz.

Cos they have 12 fingers?

That's really interesting, Cheerful Dragon!

TRiG.

Probably something to do with not wanting to lose the quarter-pounder and not having a royal family to name it after if they did go metric ...

I'm curious -- did the British Isles happen to have just a whole heck of a lot of 14 pound stones, so it was a common reference?

What is the source of "stone"? I remember hearing somewhere it had something to do with the Stone of Scone, but I think that's apocryphal?

Stone probably dates from the times when standard weights were made out of stone. There have been varying values for 1 stone, up to 25lb I believe, before 14lb was settled on.

I've never seen the Stone of Scone, but I'm willing to bet it weighs a lot more than 14lb (or even 25lb).

Do you have any knowledge of mathematics Hapi, hippo #5? Did you miss out the winkeyesmiley or are you really that ignorant? How does having ten fingers, rather than nine, make it easier to express the sum of 6 divided by 7, for example? (that question is intended to be rhetorical.) Have you heard of abaci, calculus and algebra? Do you have any understanding of base numbers?

The metric system is not besed on the number of fingers we have; if you believe that then you're ignorant and, if you don't believe that, your post unfairly disparaged americans. Either way, it ain't good.