Re: OT: Converting miles/km

Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de> wrote:

On 2024-09-20, Helmut Richter <hr.usenet@email.de> wrote:
 

I'm sorry, I don't know where to post this.  I'm crossposting to
alt.usage.english, because statute miles as a unit mostly afflict
the English-speaking world.

>
... the English-speaking world with the exception of Ireland, Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa and some others.

 
I'm well aware, but they still suffer exposure by way of American
media.
 
The American-Canadian border in particular is very leaky in this
regard.  Canada is notionally fully metric, but economically aligned
with the US, and in practice you can find American units even in
Canadian French.

The same applied originally.
Jefferson was a great fan of the metric system,
having discussed it a lot while in Paris,
but there was no way of pushing that through.
For all its proud independence the young republic
was still economically a colony,
depending for most of its manufactured stuff on England.
(so no way they could have their own units)

The only thing they got right from the start was their decimal currency,

Jan