EXIT Signs, Like the Metric System, Begs Some To Ask: Why Can't We Be Like Everyone Else?

By Douglas V. Gibbs


The Metric System made its debut in America long ago, and like anything else Europe loves, we rejected it. America is unique, was the argument, and we don't want to be just another cardboard cutout nation that follows along with all of the other sheep-like nations. Sure, the English Standard system of weights and measurements, with its twelve inches to a foot, three feet to a yard, and God knows how many yards to a mile, doesn't make any logical sense, but we are used to it, and it is ours, so we'll keep it.

Fine. We kept it. The Metric System is everywhere, but here.

Some people made a fuss about it either way. Some were angry that some folks even considered us going towards the Metric System, and others were angry we failed to adopt the worldwide system.

My opinion was that I didn't really care. If we did, we did, and if we didn't, we didn't. I suppose if I had my preferences I was really not in the mood to spend all the time learning to get used to a different system. With that in mind, I usually sided with the "screw the Metric System" folks.

"But Europe is laughing at us for sticking with an old system that has no rhyme or reason," I was told.

Let them laugh. Why should I care what a bunch of socialists think? It's bad enough they screwed music up with The Beatles!

Oh, wait, I don't mind The Beatles. You can scratch that one.

Okay, so first they tried to shove the Metric System down our throats, and we battled it off because we figured, since we are an exceptional nation, it makes sense not to go running after every little trend and fad the Europeans go chasing after.

Now, the latest attempt to make us like the rest of the world is over EXIT signs.

You know, that glowing quartet of red letters over door ways that beckon you to run maniacally through doorways whenever something disastrous happens?

The rest of the world, however, thinks our EXIT signs are something of a bore, and even worse: They make even less sense than the English Standard System of Weights and Measures.

Gad-zooks! What are we to do?

According to the critics of the American EXIT sign, using a "red" sign, also the color of STOP, is completely bananas (or was it nuts?). They think, instead, we should use the "running man." No, not the old Arnold movie with lots of blood and guts. The "running man" is the informal name for the ISO standard exit symbol in use much around the world. The symbol was created during the tale end of the 1970s by Japanese designer, Yukio Ota. International use of the sign was accepted in 1985.

One argument in support of the superiority of the running man is that it is green, and it is a picture. Green means GO, and pictures can be read by everyone.

As if during a fire, as everyone is scrambling for the exit, someone who can't read English is going to wonder which way to go, or be confused whether the red sign over the door is a warning to stop, or that it might mean exit. I guarantee you the foreigners will be following everybody else out the door with the EXIT sign over it, regardless of whether or not they can read it, and regardless of the color of the sign, when the mad scramble for safety commences.

"Honey, those idiot people are heading for the door with the red stop sign over it, maybe we should run towards the fire!"

Now days you will see the little green running dude show up here and there in the United States, and if eventually everyone likes it more than the red EXIT signs we use now, I suppose we could eventually make the switch.

I don't think I plan to make much ado over nothing, but we are used to the EXIT signs right now, so let's not confuse the natives and throw a bunch of green where we are used to seeing red. I mean, sure, from a logical point of view the green sign with the man running through a door makes sense - but then again, so did the Metric System. Americans don't follow after stuff so easily. We tend not to be sheep (except when masters of deception come along promising Hope and Change, anyway). We know our signs mean exit because they say so - and that's all that matters to us.

And if a foreigner doesn't understand the sign, trust me, as I said earlier, when the alarm goes off, and all of the Americans start heading for the door with the red EXIT sign above it, they'll figure it out, and follow suit.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

The Big Red Word vs. the Little Green Man - Slate