Those Damned Dots...

adapted from the Editorial in Dozenal Journal no.8

This issue is even more anti-metric than usual. No apology is made for this; but it may be observed that such sentiments are aroused as much by the indidious process of enforced metrication as by the second-rate qualities of the system itself.

Phased "cut-off" dates arrive, like maggots emerging from an apple, to disfigure (in both senses of the word) our common measures and with them, step by step, our rational modes of thought. Implanted in the bodies commercial and administrative with little in the way of parliamentary debate, these metric maggots appear first as innocuous seeming dual markings, such as "8oz (227g)". Who would quarrel with that?

We in Britain now know that it heralds a sequence which proceeds inexorably, at programmed intervals, along the lines of 227g (8oz) ... 220g (7·8oz) ... 220g. At this stage the politicians have done their job. The ounces have vanished, and the manufacturers can happily get on with shaving down the grammes from the already strange number of 220 (Quick now! What fraction is that of 1Kg?) cans inspected in my larder carry weights of 340g, 410g, 450g, 300g, 185g and even 411g...

The decimalists' aim is the obliteration of rational measures for ever. Are Americans ready for the nibbling larvae? Will the United States resist infestation, or meekly submit to Sèvres?