Leon S Loc: Minnesota

If we in the USA were to go metric all the way, what would I do with the 1000 pounds of SAE tools I have in the garage now? I just love being able to take my Lincoln apart or for that matter my John Deere apart and have to go between both sets of wrenches and sockets. That's especially true when I'm under a machine and have to get up to get the other type size of tool. Thank God, my cane doesn't use nuts and bolts on it. Depending on when one of the kids bikes which needs repair was made or for that where it was made, I have to use one or the other designated wrenches. The one thing I do know for I think sure is that a rope will fit either method.

Leon S Loc: Minnesota

If we in the USA were to go metric all the way, what would I do with the 1000 pounds of SAE tools I have in the garage now? I just love being able to take my Lincoln apart or for that matter my John Deere apart and have to go between both sets of wrenches and sockets. That's especially true when I'm under a machine and have to get up to get the other type size of tool. Thank God, my cane doesn't use nuts and bolts on it. Depending on when one of the kids bikes which needs repair was made or for that where it was made, I have to use one or the other designated wrenches. The one thing I do know for I think sure is that a rope will fit either method.

JCam Loc: MD Eastern Shore

Dick, I'm about your age, but I had the good fortune to have been taught the Metric System when in Prep School. It actually makes a lot more sense than the SAE system we use as smaller metric amounts are some multiple of 1000 or .1. so 1000 cubic centimeters is a liter; likewise ten millimeters is a centimeter and 1000 meters is a kilometer. Even us old coots can do that math in our heads. It's not even difficult to learn and a lot easier to work with than 64th's, 32nd's, 8th's and quarters of an inch. You only think is "sucks" because in the "ancient times" ('40's and 50's) when you and I were in grade school, no one in the educational field thought it was necessary to learn it (they probably didn't know or like it either) so didn't teach it.

Sorry,but "that's the way it is', Old Codger, and since the government doesn't have the 'stones' to try to force it down our throats, neither you nor the rest of our generation, will HAVE to learn it! However, with the world economy, it will eventually become necessary and commercial realities will force it upon the U.S.

From another, not quite as old, codger

sirlensalot Loc: Arizona

Failing to see why folks in a nursing home would be concerned with a new measuring system. All of their medications are prepared by staff using the metric system. Failing to understand the "how a TV works" to converting to metric system. I would be okay with metric. We are halfway there anyway.

drucker Loc: Oregon

Don't blame Ronnie too much -- the push to change to metric started long before all but a few living today were born! I was reading an article in a 1908 printing magazine extolling the virtues of how much would be saved by moving to metric. There have been waves pressure to change ever since pretty much to no avail unless there was a financial benefit. Car parts are the biggest jumble around with metric wrench sizes but the screw threads being American Standard. One locking nut is used worldwide -- metric shaft sizes, metric wrench size but the threads are American -- everyone just describes them by number -- forget the actual dimensions!

If you walk into a hardware store and ask for metric socket wrenches, the clerk, without batting an eye will ask, "Quarter-, three eights-, or half-inch drive?" Socket wrenches are an American tool so if you go to Europe, the sockets will be metric but the drives are still based on inches -- they just don't call them that!

Mary Kate Loc: NYC

What "world economy"???