because they industrialized before metricalization and it would’ve been incredibly expensive to convert all their machines and tooling to metric afterwards. same reason as the UK. a lot of places industrialized later, in metric from the start, and didnt have this problem.
and then they became the hegemon, and didnt have to convert, because fuck you, why should i cooperate with vassals.
the US will convert to metric when it sinks to the level it deserves and the customary units become a pain because nobody else is willing to deal with them and all the importable equipment is in metric.
Americans aren’t taught the metric system in school in a way that would force them to understand why it’s better. American education rarely teaches life skills, and in my case, almost none at all even though I was a full honors student at a top high school.
Because my car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that’s the way I like it!
Put it in H!
USA uses both, just like the UK and Canada. It’s standard in the states for…medicine, the military, science, and… two-liter beverage bottles.
Soft drinks in general. A can is 255ml, a bottle is 500ml, a big bottle is 2L
355 for the standard aluminum can irc
Convenience store wise, a can of Coke is 12 ounces and a bottle is 20 ounces in the states. They have the volume in ml on the bottle though.
Grocery stores have 1l, 16.9oz, 12oz bottles, and 7.5oz cans.
It’s all over the map.
Containers of Specific Volumes For industry.
Ah yes, CSVFI.
Nation of proud morons. Most of them do unofficially anyway
Originally it was because the ship carrying the official metric measures from France to the US in 1793 was captured by pirates. More recently it’s because there was a near-revolt when Jimmy Carter tried to reintroduce it in the 1970s in an attempt to make the US even slightly less regressive.
That reminds me of a road in AZ that had signage in KM when I was a kid. I guess it was a part of this program and it never got changed back? It was always a mindfuck suddenly seeing kms instead of miles on road trips through the area.
It’s still there
There was a stretch of the Florida coast that had metric in the late 90s and early 2000s, but people kept stealing the speed limit signs. They also had a problem with people misunderstanding 100kph (about 60mph) and doing 100mph instead.
“Misunderstanding”. They just wanted to speed
I’m assuming 2L soda bottles are also a remnant of this era.
Yeah. The attempt was made to convert everything to metric for official government documents, but that just meant most businesses paid people to convert it back for their use.
We’re a stupid country rules by assholes and morons.
You just know if someone tried to make a serious push for it, all the fox news types would go into a frenzy. It’d be an easy way to whip up their idiot base.
Technically they do. The US units are defined by the metric system, and they are full members of the Metre Convention since 1878.
Because the entire country has a foot fetish.
Fact Check: TRUE ✅
It is even worse as there are two feet.
I’m old enough to remember when they tried to convert us to metric. I can tell you why.
People tried to force it on us and we don’t need the metric system for daily use. Trying to force people to use it isn’t going to work. Now, personally, I’d prefer if measurements on rulers and in cars were still given in both systems.
Metric advocates tend to be smug and insulting towards anyone not using the metric system. I have seen this myself more than once. Calling a whole nation stupid because they use a different but functional system of measurement is hardly a good strategy for converting them to your system.
I learned the metric system in school. I understand that the metric system is superior in many sciences. I have strong interests in anthropology. And here I am at 55 and I have never, not once, needed to use metric. Bone measurements are often given in metric but it’s not such a big issue that I need to wholly convert to metric.
My question is, what’s the big deal? Is the metric system a religion? I’ve seen evangelical Christians less intent on converting people. Why?
This is the big deal.
These people didn’t need to die because people can’t see how doing something that makes it easier to communicate important information was too boring to bother with.
This is the same fucking stupidity to resist for literally no good reason simply because it would benefit literally everyone.
Because "less people will need to die for dumb reasons. Less sons and daughters will die after their own children are in the ground. It might not be a lot but it includes some of the smartest and most capable people wouldn’t have had to be blown to smithereens.
Vapourized in an instant, because you and everyone like you in this regard, are to fucking stupid to see the obvious benefits of choosing not to impose a handicap on endeavoring the biggest projects in human history.
And having the fucking gall to ask, what’s even the big deal?
See his third paragraph about being smug and insulting.
For something as standard as math and science; it would be beneficial to have consistency across the whole board.
Im American and learned the metric system and it was helpful with science. I completly bombed the A.C.T but I scored in the top 3% in the science category.
At least some of the drugs in Americas still use the metric system. Thanks MDMA and LSD. Meth too I guess since people buy points aka 100mg
base 10 is way better than whatever the fuck cups, pints, ounces, different ounces, and so on are
The main reason it annoys me is because a lot of English-language recipes online are written by USAmericans and therefore use imperial units that I have to convert. I’ve also noticed that they seem to measure everything in cups even for things where it makes no sense to use volume (flour is a common one—isn’t baking supposed to be precise? Flours can have different densities, air pockets, etc). I find ounces really confusing because they can be volume or mass.
Also, imperial is not standardised, so different countries have different amounts for a cup, an ounce, a pint, etc. I guess I can check the recipe author’s country and then convert to metric. But I just find it confusing. Can’t we just all use the same units that are nice and easy to use together since they’re powers of 10?
Kinda seems like you answered your own question…
Officially, we’re the only ones still using imperial units. But, the British use a mash-up of units in their daily lives, as does Liberia and Myanmar.
Reagan pulled the plug on our attempted conversion in 1980.
We’ll convert someday, probably after our imperial reign is over, somewhat fittingly.
Except it’s not imperial units, it’s US customary. Similar names, different actual quantities.
We use both
Not the only country Liberia uses the imperial system too.
I think its more odd that many countries use a mix (e.g. the UK with units like stones and some lengths in imperial while others are not)
I only know this because of Archer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIWDVuHDpq0
The US uses the metric system. SI units are provided by Federal Government for almost every quantifiable product produced by a federal agency and its been like that for decades. Often they use a mix of customary and SI units, providing conversions between the two in official reports. Generally you see customary units communicated when work more directly impacts the general public with more technical work using the SI system. Many industrial fields use predominantly the metric system as is the case for medicine and many engineering fields.
The US does not use, exclusively, the metric system because many units had been adopted by convention prior to the formalization of the modern international SI system and for cultural or historic reasons people don’t want to change.
That’s not so different from other places where measurement systems in common use are often retained.
The metric system debate is, for me, one of the most interesting cultural bugbears on the internet. Because it does not really matter that much what system of measurement a nation uses, its really not going to impact your life that much at the end of the day. Particularly in the modern era where conversion is as trivial as looking up a calculator online. But for whatever reason people get huffy about the metric system.
You seem to be well informed. I have no knowledge of what units are used formally, or in engineering or so, but often when I read news from the USA where measures are present, I find that they sometimes use the imperial units, and sometimes “the asteroid of the size of 5 football fields” or “a hole of the size of 4 washing machines opened in the road”.
That being said, it’s likely a journalism issue. Clickbaits matter more than accuracy. That unfortunately holds true not just for the USA…
This message is half a screen long.
It’s a journalism thing, I think. I’ve never heard anyone in conversation say things like that. I have heard people describe things like that when someone says “Well, how long is x in, mm, ft, km, etc.” “It’s about this many of that long” or whatever.
Because that was George Washington’s dream
