Word: metrication
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...system of units, a modification of the so-called British imperial system, which even Britain has largely abandoned, is complicated. Converting from inches to feet requires dividing by twelve, (quick, how many feet is 97 inches?); going from pounds to ounces calls for multiplying by 16. By comparison, the metric system is a breeze: just move the decimal point, and, presto! five meters equals 500 centimeters equals .005 kilometers...
Besides Burma, the U.S. is the only nation in the world that has not formally begun converting to metric. There was a time, while Britain was the U.S.'s major trading partner, when it would have been economic suicide to consider switching to metric. In fact, it was precisely such arguments that torpedoed Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson's proposal that the U.S. adopt a decimal-based system in 1790. A study 31 years later by his successor, John Quincy Adams, was similarly unpersuasive. But in 1866, Congress, charged by the Constitution with establishing the nation's weights and measures...
Finally, by the 1960s, most of the rest of the world had gone or was going / metric. Congress responded with legislation, and in 1975, after years of debate, the Metric Conversion Act became law. The U. S. finally appeared ready for a decisive entry into a new metric...
Sure enough, signs in both miles and kilometers started to spring up on highways, along with posters exhorting drivers to THINK METRIC. Service stations started pumping gas by the liter. And consumers began to get queasy. "You didn't know how much you wanted, you didn't know how much you got, and you didn't know how much you paid for it," sympathizes G.T. Underwood, director of the Commerce Department's Office of Metric Programs. "But you knew you felt pretty bad about the metric system...
...metrification falter? Most believe it was because compliance with the Metric Act was purely voluntary. Indeed, about all the law did was establish a metric board to help manage the anticipated rush to conversion. From the start, the board had a built-in problem: in the interest of fairness, it was set up to reflect opposing points of view. But as a result, its deliberations repeatedly ended in deadlock. "Lining up for the metric system were the multinational corporations, the scientific community and educators," recalls Underwood. "Opposed were a great many consumers, who saw it as placing undue stress...