Quote:
Originally Posted by crockett
BTW the reason we don't use the Metric system is simple.. It was about sticking it to the the Brits and letting them know we were going to do things our way after the war for Independence. Has nothing to do about which is better.
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Nothing like re-writing history on a Sunday morning!
Thomas Jefferson proposed a metric system to the First Congress several years before the French, who were the first to adopt metricity, had done so. Had it not been for his clumsy naming conventions (he suggested every unit having its own name, instead of adding prefixes to common roots), the US could have been the first country to go metric.
The British didn't go metric with their coinage until 1971 and still have not completed the switch to a fully metric measurement system.