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A review by johnmarlowe
Whatever Happened to the Metric System?: How America Became the Last Country on Earth to Keep Its Feet by John Bemelmans Marciano
3.0
I’m a bit of a “Canada-phile”, or Canada admirer. I’ve been this way from the first time I crossed over the Ambassador Bridge when traveling from Detroit to Windsor, Ontario. Passing through Detroit was like going through a 3rd world country, but just across the bridge was the clean, well maintained, and orderly city of Windsor. It wasn’t just this that made me a Canada admirer. The people were and are much friendlier than in the U.S., I thought. Everything that Canada does seems to make so much more sense too. Now, how does this relate to this book on the metric system?
I can’t recall the exact date I was driving from Ohio and through Ontario for a yearly canoe trip. But, that date sticks in my mind like few other things, because I knew it was the very day that Canada, I believe, converted road signs to the metric system. Even then I was totally impressed with Canadians taking the plunge and going metric. Even then I was wondering why the U.S. was not doing this yet. I’ll look it up if the book doesn’t say, but I believe this was probably the summer of 1973. (Looks like it was September 1977)
I knew the U.S. was converting to metric because my new 1976 Chevette was half English and half Metric. If GM was converting, the country couldn’t be far behind, right?. But, I shook my head when removing the coolant overflow tank in that car for cleaning every year because, of the two bolts that held it on, one was English, the other was Metric. After the second year, I wrote down the sockets required to avoid the inevitable cursing over GM doing this. I don’t remember this, but the book claims GM touted the Chevette as an all-metric car (hah!) I have no doubt that GM eventually made their cars all metric. No sense checking my two Toyotas, I’m sure they’re totally metric.
I only rated this book a “3” because it was slightly annoying to read about –every- person who ever had anything to do with the efforts of trying to convert to metric measurement. I’ll admit there were lots of wonderful facts in the book about the other non-metric things these same people were doing, but it made for lots of distractions. There was extensive discussion in the book on: simplified spelling, universal calendars and currency, standard time, and daylight savings time.
But, is it “bad” that the United States is not officially metric? Does it make a difference to us? The author proposes that we are metric where we need to be, and that where we are not does not matter. I’m still embarrassed personally that politics and procrastination have made us not embrace the metric standard in all measurements.
I can’t recall the exact date I was driving from Ohio and through Ontario for a yearly canoe trip. But, that date sticks in my mind like few other things, because I knew it was the very day that Canada, I believe, converted road signs to the metric system. Even then I was totally impressed with Canadians taking the plunge and going metric. Even then I was wondering why the U.S. was not doing this yet. I’ll look it up if the book doesn’t say, but I believe this was probably the summer of 1973. (Looks like it was September 1977)
I knew the U.S. was converting to metric because my new 1976 Chevette was half English and half Metric. If GM was converting, the country couldn’t be far behind, right?. But, I shook my head when removing the coolant overflow tank in that car for cleaning every year because, of the two bolts that held it on, one was English, the other was Metric. After the second year, I wrote down the sockets required to avoid the inevitable cursing over GM doing this. I don’t remember this, but the book claims GM touted the Chevette as an all-metric car (hah!) I have no doubt that GM eventually made their cars all metric. No sense checking my two Toyotas, I’m sure they’re totally metric.
I only rated this book a “3” because it was slightly annoying to read about –every- person who ever had anything to do with the efforts of trying to convert to metric measurement. I’ll admit there were lots of wonderful facts in the book about the other non-metric things these same people were doing, but it made for lots of distractions. There was extensive discussion in the book on: simplified spelling, universal calendars and currency, standard time, and daylight savings time.
But, is it “bad” that the United States is not officially metric? Does it make a difference to us? The author proposes that we are metric where we need to be, and that where we are not does not matter. I’m still embarrassed personally that politics and procrastination have made us not embrace the metric standard in all measurements.