Think Metric

It may be years before Texans ask for 38-liter hats, or a Miss America measures 91-66-91, or a new Hank Aaron hits a towering 109-meter home run. Inevitably and irreversibly, however, the metric system is coming to the U.S.

Though lawmakers have waffled for decades over proposals to switch to the world standard of weights and measures, chances of passing the so-called U.S. metric conversion bill are considered good when Congress reconvenes this week. The legislation would lead to ultimate adoption of the decimal-based system known as SI,* a modernized version of the metric system used by all advanced industrial nations except the U.S. (Canada and Britain are in the process of converting to it.)

Meanwhile, the metricization of America is already taking place. Individual federal agencies, school systems, states and industries, as well as radio announcers, supermarkets, beverage bottlers and ballpark scoreboards, are hastening the everyday use of meters, liters and grams. Items:

> In 13 states, new highway signs carry distances in both kilometers and miles. On I-94 in Minnesota, for example, a road sign outside Fergus Falls reads, ST. CLOUD 100 MILES OR 161 KILOMETERS. Other signs note that 55 m.p.h. equals 88 kilometers per hour.

> Speedometers on many new GM models use "dual graphics" to record both k.p.h. and m.p.h. (in contrasting colors); metrically measured auto engines are rolling off the four-cylinder-engine assembly line at Ford's Lima, Ohio, plant.

> Children at Denver's Harrington Elementary School took part in the first city-organized metric track meet, a 91-meter dash.

> Twenty-five states, the District of Columbia and several territories have developed uniform guidelines for classroom instruction in the use of the metric system. Beginning in the fall of 1976, Illinois schoolchildren from kindergarten through Grade 6 will be taught both the standard English and the metric systems. In Grade 7 and above, the metric system will be used exclusively.

> The U.S. National Weather Service has developed plans to convert weather forecasting to metric units (wind velocities in k.p.h., temperatures in Celsius, etc.) when the SI bill becomes law. Boston Weathercaster Don Kent already gives temperatures in both systems. One day last week, for example, he reported that the "temperature in Boston is 21DEG Celsius or 70DEG Fahrenheit."

> More than half of U.S. canned goods are already labeled in both metric and customary units.

> Boone, N.C., has proclaimed itself "the kilometer-high city."

> The Minnesota Twins have marked their stadium in both feet and meters. The distance from home plate to the left-field foul pole is indicated by two numerals painted on the stands: 100 (for meters) and 330 (for feet).

> Soft drinks in liter-size bottles are being tested by Seven-Up. Slogan: "A quart and a liter bit more."

The compelling reason for the drastic, costly, but long overdue change is that the crazy-quilt English system of measurements is ludicrously unwieldy and time consuming, particularly for U.S. industries in international trade (most American companies that export goods already use metrics). And in fact the metric system has been used for years in such industries as pharmaceuticals, armaments and tobacco ("A silly millimeter longer"), as well as in the sciences, photography and international sporting competition. U.S. astronauts involved in the joint Apollo-Soyuz orbital flight scheduled for next month report that NASA's use of metricization, e.g., booster thrusts defined in kilograms and metric tons, has greatly eased communication with their Soviet counterparts.

No one expects the transition to be easy. The old system has been ingrained in the English language since the Romans brought the pondus and the uncia to Britain MCMXXXII years ago. But the change is coming. The main task, as some highway signs exhort, is to THINK METRIC. Lapel buttons in Illinois put it more warmly: TAKE ME TO YOUR LITER.

* For the French name, Systeme International d'Unites.

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