In article ,
brian mitchell writes:
| Sacha wrote:
| On 6/2/08 17:54, in article ,
| "Martin" wrote:
| Thank Gawd for the metric system.
|
| But it's so bland, so boring. Thank God for Ye Olde English, if only
| because it IS ours!
|
| Exactly. [ Accolades for Imperial measurements skipped. ]

But, as a mathematician, it taught children the ability to perform
mixed-base arithmetic - people of my generation and background have
little difficulty in converting between units, and I frequently use
mixed system quantities. So, actually, do many other people, though
some modernists get unhappy when you talk about kilogrammes per cubic
foot or use metres per second and miles per hour in the same sentence.

After all, we used to be required to do that sort of conversion in
our heads, and some of us still can. Not as fast as I used to be able
to, but senility and ethanol may have something to do with that ....


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.