Word: metrication
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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...
Hopes of reducing the huge U.S. grain stocks, which may reach 211 million metric tons this year, withered last week when the Soviet Union violated a long-term agreement and failed to buy the 3.85 million tons of U.S. wheat remaining in this year's quota. In an effort to clinch the deal by last Tuesday's deadline, the Reagan Administration had agreed in August to subsidize the wheat, but it was not enough to keep the Soviets from going to competing suppliers. Two days after letting the U.S. deal lapse, Moscow signed a five-year pact...
...Geldof's celebrity-stacked, bicontinental hunger concert, combined with the money raised by USA for Africa (which produced We Are the World and is the parent organization of Hands), total more than $140 million. Working with various relief groups, the Geldof organization has already shipped more than 100,000 metric tons of supplies to Africa. Proceeds from Hands, which optimistic organizers estimate could reach | about $50 million, will be distributed in a similar manner on the domestic front, with funds going to grass-roots food, housing and jobs organizations...
After the investigation, canneries began belatedly processing tomatoes last week. At least 30,000 metric tons of tomatoes, though, had to be destroyed because they spoiled during the inquiry. The growers would have undoubtedly liked to throw a few of those rotten tomatoes at government officials...