«A recent survey [of Germans] found that more than half the population wanted the mark to be reinstated.
People have a deep-rooted attachment to a currency they associate with Germany's spectacular
postwar recovery, and - unexpectedly for the authorities - the number of people "thinking" in the old
currency is rising instead of falling. »
--"Germans infuriated by euro rip-offs"
conversion
jweveland on 2002-06-19T12:46:52
People seem to use the new units as an external representation for a long time, while mentally converting to the old units as an internal representation. If you can *get* people to do that, day in and day out, eventually the new units will "uptake". As a negative example, see the United States' non-adoption of the metric system.
This has a parallel in languages as well... I remember my high school Spanish teacher saying that you will know that you are fluent in the language when you can think in it. She once wrote a Spanish Lit. final in French, so I would say that she knew of what she spoke
;-)
--
jweveland
