Word: metrication
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Russia dismantles thousands of nuclear warheads, a dangerously large stock of highly enriched uranium is piling up. The U.S. announced it plans to buy at least 80 metric tons of the weapons-grade uranium over the next several years. It will be diluted and resold as fuel for commercial nuclear power stations. The deal -- no price attached yet -- will help keep the uranium out of the wrong hands and provide funds for the Russians to invest in improving the safety of their nuclear power plants. The U.S. will benefit from a long-term supply of relatively low-cost fuel...
...only in the U.S. but also by millions of people overseas. So, how does one adapt a quintessentially American newsmagazine for the rest of the world? The process is both Herculean and alchemical, involving such minutiae as the transmutation of impenetrable Americanisms and the replacement of American measures with metric, as well as the production of entire sections and cover stories that speak specifically to Asia, Europe, Latin America, Canada and Australia...
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...