The Metric System

  I'm fifty six years old. When I was in fourth grade our teacher told us the whole world was going metric. So I delved right in. I was a little surprised to find out that the metric system was a lot like counting money. Pretty simple. Aside from the awkward method of converting temperature, it was just a matter of new terminology.

Deci-(meter,liter,gram) is one tenth of a meter, liter or gram
Centi-(meter,liter,gram) is one hundredth of a meter, liter or gram
Milli-(meter,liter,gram) is one thousandth of a meter, liter or gram
Kilo(meter,liter,gram)-is one thousand meters, liters or grams

They all pertain to volume, distance, weight and time.

Shouldn't water boil at °100 and freeze at °0?
Why is a mile 5,280 feet?
Or 36 inches a yard?

Because it was never mandated in school, to this day all packaging displays both metric and English weights and volumes. I guess our government thinks we're either too stupid or lazy to do the math. Sadly, I think they may be right.