[Wikipedia-l] Esperanto sucks

Fri Oct 24 04:45:53 UTC 2003

Erik Moeller wrote:

>Tim-
>  
>
>>[en]
>>I just want to go on the record saying this: Esperanto sucks!
>>    
>>
>
>I will go on the record saying this: There is a world language, and its  
>name is English. Can we please stick to it in conversations? It has the  
>additional advantage that it keeps the French out.
>
>In return, it would be nice if Americans could finally adopt the metric  
>system.
>  
>
We'll adopt the metric system as soon as the British do, which is to say 
you'll probably be waiting a while. =D

(This means not having speed limits in miles/hour, beer in pints, and 
peoples' weights on the BBC News in stones).

On a mildly more on-topic note, there was some discussion earlier of 
some sort of automatic translation of units based on user preferences 
(kg/lbs, degrees F / degrees C, mi/km, etc.).  Did anything ever come of 
that?  Despite the obvious convenience of using metric as a standard, 
currently a fairly large percentage of English speakers would have to 
convert the units to make sense of them (the ~300 million Americans form 
a fairly decent percentage of English speakers), so using the old 
"standard" units for them makes some sense.

-Mark