Why did Americans try to change so much? Spellings, metric systems, order of short dates?

Question

I mean there's defence and defense, billion and thousand million, colour and color, they also changed the order of short dates, the rest of the world uses DD/MM/YY, they usa MM/DD/YY so a short date can be two different days depending on which country you're in. It just makes things awkward. Why?

Sorry - wrong category.

Answer 1

I just think that things evolved differently in the two countries given how far apart they are. You see that even within the UK to a lesser extent. People in Scotland, Ireland and England sometimes use different words for the same thing. And they aren't 6000 miles apart.

And how do you explain the fact that England drives on the left hand side of the road while the US drives on the right... and so does most of the rest of Europe. In fact 2/3 of the world drives on the right and the 1/3 that drives on the left are mostly former English colonies. America wasn't the one to change that. ;-)

Answer 2

Why not ask about the Asians? They use an entirely different type of written language? But, we use the spellings we do because our form of English is based on words with roots in multiple languages from the wide variety of peoples that settled here. Billion is easier than thousand million so we use it. If you like thousand million, that's fine I guess. Americans will stick with billions. Short dates? Until recently I didn't know anyone used the dd/mm/yy format. I guess we use mm/dd/yy because for our enitre history our long dates have the month first so using the same format in short dates just made sense. Metrics? We haven't changed metrics. Metrics is a relatively new system of measurement developed in Europe I believe. Americans still use the old system. We don't upgrade because it's a hassle and it would be expensive redesigning packaging, measuring equipment, road signs etc.

Answer 3

Its been a very slow and gradual process, but The U.S. will eventually be there. We are already buying water by the liter, and running Highschool track meets in meters instead of yards. However, the problem is that our older people(I'm 34 and have a hard time picturing a kilometer) have never really been exposed to metric units. We are, like I said before, starting to see more and more things labeled in metric units, and some sold in metric units. For instance, Coca Cola(and most other soft drinks) are sold in 12 oz cans, 20 oz bottles, then 2 or 3 liter bottles. In the last few years, bottled water, and sodas, have been showing up in stores in half liter bottles as well. Also, more and more tools are sold in metric sizes, instead of SAE, because more and more nuts and bolts are metric on vehicles and heavy machinery.

Answer 4

Many countries use the DD/MM/YY system-left hand driving and left side of the road.India is a developing (economically poor)country.It quickly adopted Metric system(CGS system).Two generations have grown-who do not know anything about Foot-Pound-Ounce-Pint-Gallon-Mile-Furlong-Fahrenheit etc. From advanced Research Laboratories-Atomic Energy/Space Research to ordinary Grocery shops-Supermarkets-Farmer's market-Postal-Railway services etc uniformly all measures are only in Grams-Kilograms-Litres -millilitres-Metres-Kilometres-Celsius etc .1000 million people have very quickly adopted and use and by an act of Parliament it is compulsory.

Answer 5

Well we adopted a lot of our systems from the British..such as our system of weights and measures which predates the metric system

Spellings changed as our own dialect of English evolved

Dates the USA way is just more sensible and hence better...if you announce date as Sept 13th 2002 then why write as 13/09/02?..that's just nonsense

Answer 6

I think alot of things could be said on this issue, but it would open a HUGE can of worms, so I'm gonna leave it alone.
I think this should be moved to the polotics catagory, because of some of the answers you may recieve.

Hope you get on ok

Answer 7

I think they just want to be special. :) don't forget CENTRE and CENTER and Celcius vs Farenheit. Maybe one day they will join the rest of the world in the metric system, till then.....

Answer 8

to be different duh!! if america wanted to be da same as da whole world, our ancestors would have never came to america and begin a new country