American Fans of the Metric System

choi

Justin Scheck, Cooking a Poundcake in a Metric Oven Is No Easy Task; Foes of US measurement go to the extra 1.6 kilometers for their cause. Wall Street Journal, Nov 24, 2012 (front page).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 34962731896422.html

Excerpt in the window of print: 'If we are * * * keepers of the flame, it's because the rest of the country is in darkness.' --Metric supporter Paul Trusten

Note:
(a) The "go to the extra mile" is a phrase.
1 mile = 1.6 km
(b) 180 degrees C = 356 degrees F
(c) metricate (vt): "British: METRICIZE"

All definitions are from www.m-w.com.
(d) Metric Conversion Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Conversion_Act
of 1975 remains in effect.
(e) Maybelline
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maybelline
(created by New York chemist TL Williams in 1915; acquired by L'Oréal in 1996)

(f) The report says, "In June, Mr Rodriguez alerted members to a box of store-brand cornflakes from H-E-B Grocery Co. in Texas: Its nutrition label used the metric "kilojoules" alongside the customary 'calories,' used to denote the amount of energy contained in a serving."
* H-E-B
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-E-B
(a privately held San Antonio, Texas-based supermarket chain with more than 315 stores throughout the US state of Texas and northern Mexico; "founded in 1905 when Florence Butt opened the CC Butt Grocery Store on the ground floor of her family home in Kerrville [58 miles (93 km) northwest of San Antonio and 85 miles (137 km) west of Austin], Texas. In 1919, Howard Edward Butt, Florence's youngest son, took over the store")
* The joule (defined as "energy expended (or work done) in applying a force of one newton through a distance of one metre"] is part of International System of Units
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units
(The system has been nearly globally adopted with Burma, Liberia and the United States not having adopted SI units as their official system of weights and measures; section 1 History; sectin 3.2 Derived units)
* calorie
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie
("The calorie is a pre-SI metric unit of energy. It was first defined by Nicolas Clément in 1824 as a unit of heat"/ 1 cal = 4.2 joules)

1 joule = 0.2390 cal

(g) Regarding "Metric mavens are more used to getting the short end of the yardstick."

"Getting the short end of the stick"is a phrase, whose origin is unknown.
Charles Clay Doyle, The Long Story of The Short End of the Stick. American Speech, 69, 96-101 (1994), at Page 96.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/455954

(h) Stanley Black & Decker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Black_%26_Decker
(IN 2010 The Stanley Works--founded by Frederick Trent Stanley in 1843; Headquarters New Britain, Connecticut, a Hartford suburb)--merged with Black & Decker (founded in 1910 by S Duncan Black and Alonzo G Decker in Baltimore, Maryland)

(i) The report states Mr Zack Rodriguez "left his mother 'frazzled.'"

frazzle (vt; alteration of English dialect fazle to tangle, fray
First Known Use: circa 1825):
"2a : to put in a state of extreme physical or nervous fatigue
b : UPSET"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/frazzle