# Final word on metric vs English after the apocalypse **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 19, 2023, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-word-on-metric-vs-english-after-the-apocalypse/982906 "2023-04-19T14:29:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2023, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-word-on-metric-vs-english-after-the-apocalypse/982906/1 "2023-04-19T14:29:56Z")
Dust. That’s all that is left. Mad Max roams the vast deserts searching for gasoline. But dammit, we still need to know how far it is between outposts or how to sight the rifles. Whata yah gonna do? Measure ten millionth of the distance from the north pole to the equator or stomp your foot in the dust and declare, “That’s a foot!” ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2023, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-word-on-metric-vs-english-after-the-apocalypse/982906/2 "2023-04-19T14:35:42Z")
“Mr. Smoot. Oliver Smoot - Please pick up the white Courtesy Phone.” > **[Understanding the Smoot - Larson Design Group](https://www.larsondesigngroup.com/understanding-smoot/)** > > The long and short of it is that a smoot is a unit of measurement that measures exactly 5 feet 7 inches (or 67 inches or 1.7018 meters). ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2023, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-word-on-metric-vs-english-after-the-apocalypse/982906/3 "2023-04-19T15:24:01Z")
> [@mixdenny](#): > > Mad Max roams the vast deserts searching for gasoline. Join up with Tina Turner and her pigshit-to-methane cartel. We don’t need another hero. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2023, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-word-on-metric-vs-english-after-the-apocalypse/982906/4 "2023-04-20T00:43:45Z")
Easy as, just pace the distance and call it metres. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2023, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-word-on-metric-vs-english-after-the-apocalypse/982906/5 "2023-04-20T14:18:08Z")
International commerce won’t be a factor, so I suppose it’ll all be feet and inches here in the USA, and I’d put money on Canada dropping metric, because there’s still a lot of resistance to a lot of it there. The remaining USA and Canada factions will go to war when we sell 1,000 gallons of fuel to them, and they feel short-changed upon receipt. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2023, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-word-on-metric-vs-english-after-the-apocalypse/982906/6 "2023-04-20T15:09:45Z")
Cockroaches will become the basic standard of measurement, as in “that’s about 6 or 7 cockroaches long” or “this weighs about a dozen cockroaches”.