What is a metric? Not metricS, but "a metric". A metric is a measure, sometimes complex and made up of several variables. It is supposed to be an indicator, usually THE indicator of goodness or superiority. It is the grade or quality measure as in "She has a very high GPA and is a student who excels" or "His credit score is 850 and he looks like a good credit risk to us."
"Metric system" is sometimes a subject of debate since one group of citizens may feel that basing our length and weight measurements on the metric system is unAmerican or worse. But a metric is a measure, a score. It need not be a numeral but it usually is. When we say that she is an A student, we are referring to an order list of ranks or grades and this person is of the highest rank.
Because people are competitive, they tend to focus on a metric and try to raise the level or number as high as possible. I think the most common metric we all use is money. Income levels, bank balances, salaries all matter and we tend to say that a person who earns one thousand dollars a year is poor while someone who earns a thousand thousand (a million) is rich. As we age, we find that money and other metrics, such as height or weight or bust size or IQ can be misleading. There is an old understanding that metrics of common properties are often out of whack and less useful when they indicate a very different position on a line than is typical. A person who earns $1,000 a year might be a volunteer in some work that earns a bit of money once in a while. But, a person who earns a tenth of a cent a year or a trillion dollars a year is off the scale. A person who is 1 inch tall and a person who is 1 mile tall are both victims of a clerical or genetic error or fundamental change in what we are talking about.
Consider American football, which awards 7 points for getting that odd-shaped ellipsoid across the goal at the opposite end of the playing field:
What was the highest scoring game in football?
This particular game occurred on October 7th of 1916 and was between the Georgia Tech Engineers and the Cumberland Bulldogs of Tennessee. Georgia Tech scored 222 points, and the Bulldogs never scored making this the highest scoring game of all time in football history.Oct 8, 2013
Highest Scoring Football Game Of All Time! - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG6NsioPsqE
