Why is the U.S. still not using the metric system?

[GhostWriter16]

there is no such thing as a language that is intrinsically easy to learn

I said EASIER not easy, I know they are all quite difficult.

But at least I remember the basics:

Hola, como estas?

 

[Arakhor]

You are also asking on an English language forum based in the US. Chances are that 90% of the forum-goers are not qualified.

 

[GhostWriter16]

You are also asking on an English language forum based in the US. Chances are that 90% of the forum-goers are not qualified.

I don't THINK I asked a question (Except a question in Spanish that everyone should know the answer too.)

 

[uppi]

Powers of 2 are not weird fractions at all. Fold a piece of paper in half. Do it again. And again. And...

Get another piece of paper. Fold it in five equal sections without using a ruler.

This is the computer age. Long live the binary king.

Spoiler :

The metric system is only convenient because we work in base ten.

If the American units would consistently use base two or base twelve or some other easily dividable base, you would have an argument. But as it mixes factors 2,3,5,8 and whatever in its conversion factors the argument is easily turned around: At least the metric system has a base.

And as an American I would be really careful with mentioning the folding of paper. That just leads to another rant on how the Americans ignore yet another world standard on paper sizes, which is based on the powers of 2 and use their own sizes without any systematic approach.

 

[Dachs]

I said EASIER not easy, I know they are all quite difficult.

there is no such thing as an objective hierarchy of languages based on how easy they are to learn

one language is not "easier" to learn than another one

stop being obtuse

 

[Disgustipated]

I said EASIER not easy, I know they are all quite difficult.

But at least I remember the basics:

Hola, como estas?

If you include proper punctuation, Spanish can be a bit more difficult.

It should be: Hola, cómo estás.

 

[GhostWriter16]

one language is not "easier" to learn than another one

stop being obtuse

Fine, go ahead and learn Mandarin and say its as easy as any language.

I'm not being obtuse, just stating what I have heard.

If you include proper punctuation, Spanish can be a bit more difficult.

It should be: Hola, cómo estás.

Yes true, but I don't have a Spanish keyboard

 

[Rashiminos]

@uppi
We were arguing over fractions of inches, not the entirety of the Imperial system, or at least I was.

American standard paper size is 8.5"x11" which does not involve powers of 2 in those measurements. Furthermore, you do not need to know the measurements of a rectangular paper to fold it in half.

 

[Zack]

If you include proper punctuation, Spanish can be a bit more difficult.

It should be: Hola, cómo estás.

Ironically, your punctuation is incorrect. That should be surrounded by question marks, the one at the beginning upside down.

If you're going to be a grammar Nazi, then do it correctly!

 

[Lillefix]

Fine, go ahead and learn Mandarin and say its as easy as any language.

Yes, but that's because Spanish is closely related to English while Chinese isn't.

But I still think Spanish is intrinsically more difficult than English because of all the verb inflections.

Ironically, your punctuation is incorrect. That should be surrounded by question marks, the one at the beginning upside down.

If you're going to be a grammar Nazi, then do it correctly!

Actually, the first question mark should be after hola, not in the beginning: Hola, ¿cómo estás?

 

[Arakhor]

Spanish and English are both descended from Indo-European, but one is Romance and the other is Germanic (with French and Latin influence). They're hardly "closely related".

 

[Lillefix]

Spanish and English are both descended from Indo-European, but one is Romance and the other is Germanic (with French and Latin influence). They're hardly "closely related".

Well, you have to think in relative terms. If you look at the grammar and compare it to the grammar of Arabic or Japanese, they are very similar.

 

[Bill3000]

I said EASIER not easy, I know they are all quite difficult.

But at least I remember the basics:

Hola, como estas?

No, there isn't. Spanish isn't intrinsically easier than Mandarin. Mandarin just has a significantly different grammar from English compared to Spanish; understandable, as Spanish and English are both Indo-European languages, and Mandarin is completely unrelated. Badminton may be easier to learn for, say, knows tennis, but it's not because it's intrinsically easier, but because they already know things through their previous experiences in the other sport. It similarly applies to languages which are more closely related than other languages. In addition, knowing some basic phrases is not even remotely what is required to be an expert in the language.

Most importantly, you can't compare learning one's native language to learning a measurement set. You learn a native language in a very special period in your life when you are biologically capable of nativizing any language whatsoever - this period will go away by puberty. This is why people can become bilingual if they learn the second language when they are young, complete with no foreign accent - the same can't be said for those the vast majority of those who learn it later on, who are essentially doomed to non-native speech. So no, to your initial point, Spanish isn't going to be easier than English if you don't know either, provided you're talking about when you don't know a language in the first place as a newborn.

 

[BasketCase]

So what you're saying is you let your peers influence your actions...

Only if they like getting punched in the crotch, and while I'm making a completely unfounded guess here, my intuition tells me most people do not--and the few who do, generally show up in very distasteful porn videos and are not the kind of people I ever want to get to know.

Here in Canada we're "metric", but feet and inches are still everywhere. It's a mix of both systems, really.. quite annoying at times

Well, whadayaknow--that could be it right there. Maybe we Americans saw what happened up north, and decided that was something we didn't feel like putting up with?

"I'm driving, Axel--I've SEEN your car." -- Jenny, Beverly Hills Cop

 

[GoodGame]

Seriously, I'm becoming more and more embarrassed by my country. Yes I know, people will tell me to leave. But our country as a whole is being left behind in technological progress. Are Americans just too stupid to use the metric system? I can't believe that because it's actually easier than Imperial (or customary) units. How can our American kids keep up with the rest of the world with this archaic measuring system?

I'm sure you guys have had this kind of thread here before, but I still can't believe we are using this in 2011. You think Obama of all presidents would change this over. Yes I know there is a recession. But think of the possibilities of putting unemployed people to work changing all the road signs. I remember when I was a kid in the 80's I figured it was only a matter of time before they change it over, but it hasn't happened yet. Why?

The rest of the world must think we are horribly backwards.

I dunno. Anyone in the sciences definitely does use metric system. I think it's really still inertia and some critical parts of society still use it. American highways and cars still use it, medical doctors still use it, and American tools (wrenches, screws, etc..) and there was no economic reason to switch even though we earned our sovereignty from the English.

 

[Disgustipated]

Ironically, your punctuation is incorrect. That should be surrounded by question marks, the one at the beginning upside down.

If you're going to be a grammar Nazi, then do it correctly!

I have no idea how to get the upside down ? mark. I do have my international keyboard setup activated, so maybe I'll try to mess around and see if I can figure it out.

¿ got it: ctrl-alt ?

 

[Quintillus]

Are Americans just too stupid to use the metric system? I can't believe that because it's actually easier than Imperial (or customary) units.

There you go. Americans like a challenge, so they use the more difficult imperial system.

I actually find imperial kind of sensible in some ways, like how the volume measurements tend to all be multiples of two (cups, pints, quarts, gallons = 8, 16, 32, 128 ounces). Very handy and efficient if you're using binary systems such as computers to convert between imperial units. You'd waste a lot more CPU cycles converting between decimal metric units such as deciliters to liters.

More seriously, just the other day my father mentioned that there was a big brouhaha about changing to the metric system when he was in college, and he's quite a bit older than you are. Not saying it's never going to happen, but there's a lot of inertia with the Imperial system in America. And in a lot of places the benefit is pretty low. Sure, we've seen why NASA should use the metric system, but it doesn't really make a difference if you cook your brownies at 400 degrees Fahrenheit or 204 and four-ninths degrees Celsius, and it's pretty unlikely you'll cook them at 400 Celsius of 204 and four-ninths Fahrenheit by mistake. It just looks a bit odd when you cook something on a Celsius-only oven and you have the temperature knob marginally above 200 degrees because that's what your recipe calls for. GoodGame makes a good point about the existing infrastructure too - which state really wants to pay to replace all their mile per hour speed limit signs with kilometer per hour ones? Seems like a big waste of money, especially with current budget crunches.

Also it seems somewhere in the past 115 posts this became a language thread. Well on that topic, I've heard Esperanto is relatively easy to learn, though I haven't tried to learn it myself. Of the languages I have studied some, I'd say Spanish has been the easiest, although I cheated a bit by learning French first.

 

[Joecoolyo]

Hey guys, I have a proposition.

All of us Americans will change over to metric once all the Brits start driving on the right side of the road.

How does that sound?

 

[Disgustipated]

why do they drive on the wrong side of the road anyways?

 

[Tani Coyote]

Too busy arguing over stupid issues in politics + we tend to operate on a "if it ain't broke don't fix it" ideology.