From: Anton Aylward (anton_at_the-wire.com)
Date: Sun May 02 2004 - 16:10:17 PDT
On Sun, 2004-05-02 at 17:01, Sasa wrote:
> However, one country did not adopt the new system, Great Britain. And
> for one reason only: it was a french invention. This is the reason why
> Canada and the USA have different systems: Canada has a french origin,
> the USA have a british origin.
You should check facts.
The French colonization of what is now Canada and the layout of cities
such as Quebec and Montreal preceeded Napoleon.
The adoption of the metric system as the official basis for measure in
Canada was by ligislation in the 20th century.
What confuses a lot of 'foreigners' is the way things get labelled.
Being a dual language coutnry almost everything is required by law to be
available in both languages. Many foreign supplies, for example of
canned & packaged foods, seem to have the same confuseion you do, and
have labels that are metric/french and imperial/English. I suppose this
is just in case they have to be sold or consumed in the USA as well.
The problem is that the English gallon and the American gallon are not
the same.
I would also point out that much of the USA was French: think New
Orleans; think The Louisiana Purchase ....
It was a good posting, Sasa, it just glided over some facts.
-- Anton Aylward <anton_at_the-wire.com> -- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/ WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
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