It's really too bad that our conversion was stopped in mid-track by the ever present, "We're 'merican we do'n need no furners telln us nutin" meme.

For anyone not familiar with the history of the reason why only three countries still resist Metrication: Burma, Liberia, and the United States of America.

I cannot *fathom* why anyone would keep the imperial system, other than misplaced, ignorant pride.

Im also still wondering why Americans always need to know first which month or year it is instead of the day.

>> ^coolhund:

Im also still wondering why Americans always need to know first which month or year it is instead of the day.


That's because it all depends on how you say the date. Do you say the twenty-third of August? Or do you say August twenty-third. You usually write it out in order of how you normally say it.
Americans, in general, say the latter.
And I don't think it sounds funny at all.

>> ^brycewi19:

>> ^coolhund:
Im also still wondering why Americans always need to know first which month or year it is instead of the day.

That's because it all depends on how you say the date. Do you say the twenty-third of August? Or do you say August twenty-third. You usually write it out in order of how you normally say it.
Americans, in general, say the latter.
And I don't think it sounds funny at all.


I am talking about the date format. 12/24/11 or 11/12/24.
Why would you write it that way unless youre accounting for all the time travelers that want to know the year or month first...

Many countries (like here, Canada) are kind of a mix. I buy deli meat in grams, but I weigh myself in pounds. I travel kilometers, but I measure my height in feet and inches. Gas and milk are sold by the liter, but recipes (even ones from Canadian sources) are usually still in cups.

Really, the States isn't so different than that. There's plenty of metric floating around there already in places where it helps the most.

The divisions that are actually used are also not consistent. Nobody uses centiliters or decigrams (or many of the other units he mentions) - and very few would know whether a decimeter is longer or shorter than a decameter. The actual commonly used units vary on the measure: millimeters, centimeters, meters, kilometers; milliliters, liters; milligrams, grams, kilograms.

And the system misses chances for natural alignment. For example, a liter of water fits in a 10-centimeter wide cube and weighs a kilogram. I have no idea why it was made that way. In particular, it seems like it would have been more intuitive to have a kilogram be called a "gram" (and thus have a short word that corresponds to a more generally useful amount, like a pound) - and then a liter of water would weigh a gram. Though I guess then we'd then need less weildy micrograms for, say, medication. I suppose there's no clear right answer.

Anyways, obviously the metric system is superior for a lot of things - but there's a reason beyond stubbornness that other measures persist for different uses (I like the British "stone" measure for human weight for example - and certainly a "cup" of an ingredient is pretty handy). All in all, I don't think it's that big of a deal.

When you learn a second language, for a long time, if not forever, you still think in your first language and then translate.

I think it's the same with measurements, to a lesser degree, and it's really a pain in the ass to learn the system when everyone around you is using something else.

I mean, I know an inch is about 2.5cm and I know a yard is almost as long as a meter and I can fudge conversions in my head based on that, but to get to the point where you actually think in a new system, you've got to immerse yourself in it. For the average person, there's not much advantage to convert. Measurements are generally used vaguely ("It's about 10 miles away") so familiarity is more important than the ease of unit conversion that comes with metric. The vast majority of us still recognize that metric is a superior system and why.