Metrication of units of measure was a wonderful thing for me, having done engineering where all the units are used and pounds, ounces, tons, inches, feet, yards, miles, poundals etc were a blight on my life, especially when combined with pounds, shillings, pence, seven figure log tables and slide rules, with pencil and paper as the calculating medium and the only computer power being my brain.
The English language is indeed an accursed thing, and one must be very careful when using it for it is full of traps for the unwary. I regret to inform that you might have fallen into one. Metrification [a word I'm not sure you'll find in the OED] should logically deal with measures of length such as meters, millimeters, decimeters, kilometers, etc., not with ounces, pounds, or shillings, just as "literification" should logically deal with units of volume.
But it's OK. I am sure you would be applauded for creating a new word...in the old days. And as its creator, you have every right to assign whatever meaning you wish to it.
I read something the other day in the London Review of Books about David Foster Wallace, an also unfortunately gone greatly talented writer [I say also because Rambi was indeed singularly gifted] in which he is said to have described his mother as a 'militant grammarian'. Amused me greatly.
Reminds me of a local but now extinct law firm populated by brilliant eccentrics who would hand new hires 10 lbs. worth of documents, telling them that there would be a test the next day on the subject matter - how to properly use "which" and "that".
I don't know when or how or if they were told it was a joke. |
