Word: metrically
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Critics are quick to point out that no nuclear reactor, either water-cooled or gas-cooled, is totally safe as long as it produces radioactive waste. The U.S. alone has generated thousands of metric tons of "hot" debris, including enough spent fuel to cover a football field to a height of three feet. Said Sir Crispin Tickell, British Permanent Representative to the United Nations: "The fact that every year there is waste being produced that will take the next three ice ages and beyond to become harmless is something that has deeply impressed the imagination...
...Kuala Lumpur. Even worse, I am forced to rise from my swivel chair and wander down the hall each time I need the name of the concierge at the Hotel George V in Paris. In contrast, about the only power tool my Daily Planner offers is a page of metric equivalents. Unfortunately, the last time I needed a metric crib sheet, I was standing on a bathroom scale in Italy after a huge dinner, trying to convince myself that pounds and kilograms are almost equal...
...Suddenly, just as Gail Sheehy promised, I at last understood my precise position in the Great Chain of Being. As soon as I got back to my office, I eagerly scrawled in my new datebook my sole New Year's resolution for 1989: "Memorize that table of metric equivalents...
...generations, Britain has reveled in a system of weights and measures that confounds the outside world. Instead of using the no-nonsense metric system, Britons measured their cricket pitches in chains (22 yds.), their horse races in furlongs (220 yds.), their meat in pounds and their beer in pints. Bowing to a proposal of the European Community, however, the British have tentatively agreed to convert their systems to metric, starting...
...relief from the drought that began in the spring. Just how much damage the prolonged dry spell has already caused was the subject of a preliminary crop forecast issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The USDA estimated that U.S. grain production in 1988 may be only 212 million metric tons, down 24% from 1987. The corn crop is particularly hard hit -- 26% smaller than last year. The USDA pegged soybean production at 1.65 billion bu., down 13%. Wheat output is expected to decline 13%, to 1.84 billion bu. That drop would be much worse were...