IGNORANCE IS BLISS; ‘TIS FOLLY TO BE WISE
It never ceases to amaze me with Americans is it conceit or perhaps ignorance with certain things?
Take the “Metric System” for example. They, the American people by and large, have no idea, or conception, of the system, and further more, from my understanding, no interest in it.
I believe that they find it too difficult, why is beyond me; they have no difficulty with their currency, and that is decimal/metric system. Perhaps it’s the ‘words/names’ that they don’t like, Kilometres, Kilograms, Litres & Hectares for example
But what annoys me most is the way they change the spelling without any regard of why or what they are doing. They don’t use the metric system so what gives them the right to change the way the words are spelt?
In all instances they change the ending from ‘re’ to ‘er”; do they consider the rest of the world ignorant and not know the correct spelling of their own words? It certainly smacks of conceit if not downright arrogance!
An example, the word litre they spell it liter; now ‘WP ‘ spell checker is showing the correct spelling as wrong, would you believe!
They think that liter is correct. Lite (light), liter(lighter), litest (if you want consistency(lightest).
The next example we’ll take is metre (again underlined by spell ckeck as incorrect) and the American spelling meter. To me a meter is an instrument for measuring. A gas meter to register the amount of gas I use; a speedometer, to measure the speed I’m driving at, are just a couple of examples.
What they fail to understand, (perhaps that should be; what they don’t want to understand) is the metric system was devised by the French and that it is originally based on the French mètre des archives and the kilogramme des archives.
That’s putting it simplistically and this post is really just a little peeve of mine, as the American way in this really gets my goat!
a dollop of codswallop served with a pinch of salt
LordBeariOfBow 
Hear hear! I too have a long list.
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It’s so simple and easy once you try and get used to it, I have difficulty trying to work out the old Imperial system now
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Both systems are in use here, you can still walk into a butcher’s shop and ask for a pound of mince. Electronic Weighing scales use both systems too. I can easily switch between both. I have more difficulty with ‘Old money’ but I try to remember because I don’t ever want to forget. My list was more to do with the USA not the metric system.
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I can still work pounds shillings and pence with no problems, I suppose that’s because I suppose I still love it and the old ways, but I’m the first to admit that decimal makes much more sense. I do like metric for weight, I have trouble now trying to work out how much half pound of butter is in metric, I think nearest is 250gms, I like grams and kilos, not so much the names but the measurement.
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Gosh . . . so much I want to say . . . but who can argue with a closed mind? Not I, said I.
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