Something that I think is worth noting: not all that long ago (in the grand scheme of things) it was considered necessary to learn French, particularly for the purpose of international communication. (You may be familiar with the phrase lingua franca.) That English (particularly American English) has taken precedence is something to be expected given that the United States is currently considered to be the sole global hegemon. Look back at the history of Western civilization - as hegemony changes hands, the dominant language changes too. Now, I want to be perfectly clear: I'm not saying that hegemony or the resultant changes in language or culture is a good thing or a bad thing. It's the state of things.
You have a point. The English language has been changing since its origins. Hell, every language keeps changing over time. They either merge with one another, or diverge into more languages, or just die out.
What, Spanish? Soon, most of America will be bi-lingual with Spanish and English. Then, next the whole WORLD! WOO HAHAHAHA!! Now, why the HELL does America continue to use the standard measurement system, when the metric system is VASTLY superior? It is easier to convert units, and easier to understand. Hell, I'm even learning 100 km/ltr over MPG.
Isn't the unstable Ivory Coast the lone nation with us on the standard measurement system? I'm fully in favor moving to the metric system. Seriously, feet? A base-12 number system, garrr, it makes no sense! I feared going to Canada (about 50km north) with my old Subaru since it only had miles. I don't want to constantly convert while driving. EDIT: Just found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers#Top_20 English speakers are #3 on the most spoken language rankings. #2 is Spanish and #1, Mandarin. Better start learning Mandarin soon...
There's a great map that I can't find showing the countries that still don't use metric. It's maybe my favourite map in the whole universe.
There's yer map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_system I was close, it was Liberia I was thinking of.
Damn, and Myanmar, which isn't exactly the greatest place on Earth. I'd support the metric system, I'm just not sure how feasible it would be for the US to make an intentional conversion. So I'm just kinda hoping that it changes gradually out of a practical necessity. The Army uses metric for a lot of stuff, though. I dig it there.
I'd imagine in the short-run converting to Metric would hurt the economy... Retraining people, new equipment/software, all that fun stuff... Not to mention all the people that refuse to acknowledge anything that isn't measured in pounds, ounces, inches, feet, or yards.
Hurt the economy? With everybody spending so much money on the switch? Ridiculous. You people seriously need to stop using Imperial. And DEFINITELY stop calling it 'standard.' If only two countries are using it, and one of them is Burma, that's not standard.
well, considering how long its been since we "adopted" the metric system, and yet how far we still are in atually converting everything, I don't see it happening any time soon *L*
Welcome to the boards. You're going to have a hard time in the Movie forum if your tolerance for spelling and grammar errors is so low that the British/American English differences set you off. Probably best to just avoid the majority of the internet.