What they won’t tell you about the metric system is how un-poetic it really is. Let’s say I was out there crafting a poem about an arduous journey through a desert. If I wrote something about seeing “nothing but sand for miles and miles,” it would sound pretty good. Now if I were to say that I saw “nothing but sand for kilometers and kilometers,” it would sound horrible, and I’d have no hope of making it as a poet in this cruel world.
I recently read some poetry from a man by the name of Pat Ingoldsby. Pat hails from the Republic of Ireland, where they use the easily digestible metric system. However, even a metric man understands the poetic value of a non-metric unit. He wrote about people “inching forward. To inch forward, or inch along, as a phrase, puts a nice image in your mind. An image of tediousness. No one centimeters forward. That sounds ludicrously scientific.
Sometimes even wackier units create an ever-more-impactful poetic statement. Take fathoms, for example. I can’t understand what a fathom is, but if I read about a “beast lurking a thousand fathoms beneath the surface,” it wouldn’t matter how deep that actually is because I’m scared of this ominous creature now. Or leagues, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea sounds quite adventurous if you ask my opinion on the matter.
But even I have my limits. These units sound nice, but I don’t want our society based on leagues or fathoms or even miles. The metric system is better, but I like that these other units have existed, from a literary perspective. Some units get my blood boiling. There’s tons and tonnes and short tons and long tons and metric tons. What on Earth is that all about?
What really annoys me are nautical miles. Boy, do I hate those. My nation uses miles, and I can’t change that, but nautical miles? What next, nautical gallons? Nautical hours?
I think my problem is that I strongly dislike all nautical terminology, not just their special miles. Oh there’s damage on the side of the ship! What side? Starboard! Really? Starboard? Star board? Can we not just say “left?” Left is a great word, believe me.
Yet, in a cruel twist of irony, I must admit that starboard is a more poetic piece of terminology than left. Let’s say I was out and about, working on a poem about an old pirate ship battle. If I wrote down something like, “Explosions ripped the starboard wood,” it would probably sound better than me saying, “Explosions ripped the left side of the boat.” Maybe starboard isn’t so bad after all…
Lefty Forrester 