Sir, – Colm Ó hAnluain states in his letter of September 28th that if Ireland is serious about becoming a smart economy we need to adopt the metric system.
I fully agree. I remember when I was in school in the 1970s, I was told the move to metric was going to be gradual.
It seems at the current rate of progress it will be very gradual and it will take a few generations before we fully embrace it.
If the transfer to the euro was that gradual, I’m afraid we’d be still using the punt. Old habits die hard. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – May I say that, pound-for-pound, metric does indeed punch above its weight in terms of ease of use over imperial.
However, I feel this long-running argument may have gone the whole nine yards at this stage and with metric leading into the final furlong, it won’t be long until this weighty matter is decided.
Mine’s a pint by the way. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – The Republic’s slow adoption of the worldwide metric system creates numerous anomalies.
Thus, until quite recently, our dairying industry was the last in the world still measuring milk in imperial British gallons, whereas our neighbours in Northern Ireland changed to litres decades ago.
In the property industry, engineers and architects adopted metric units in the early 1970s, but the auctioneers and estate agents are still struggling with square metres and hectares.
In cases of inevitable and irreversible changeovers, there’s only one way to go – change once and for all and be done with it. – Yours, etc,