[PLUG-TALK] Spelling English

[John Jason Jordan]

On Wed, 7 Apr 2021 17:30:34 -0700
Galen Seitz <galens at seitzassoc.com> dijo:

>I'm in.  While you're at it, can you speed up the adoption of the 
>Système international?

Indeed, I'm also an advocate for the Système international d'unités,
although I'm an activist only for linguistics issues.

But I should point out that I recall when the US and Canada both
decided to go metric. The Canadians did it, but at the last minute
conservatives in Congress killed it in the US. But having said that, US
industry is largely metric, mostly because of the need to sell products
abroad. If you have a car manufactured in the US in the last 20 years,
try to work on it without a set of metric wrenches. 

Some things are easier to change than others. Land measurements, even
in Canada, are still in feet and acres, although dwelling measurements
there are advertised in square meters. Changing land measurements that
are all based on a couple centuries of recorded documents is not so
easy. 

I should add that if I deed some land to you and define the boundaries
in meters, the deed is still valid. All measurements in the Système
international are perfectly legal by federal law in the US. The
difficulty is not legality, but custom. And customs change, albeit more
slowly than I would like. 

It might be interesting to see if individual states can dictate things
within their borders. What if speed limit signs in Oregon were replaced
with signs in both km/h and m/h like the Canadians do?

Maybe we could get Biden to add something to his infrastructure plans
to move us more international.