Heck, up here in metric-loving Canada, supermarket flyers routinely hawk goods by the pound, becuase 99¢/lb looks cheaper then $2.18/kg. The latter (though equivalent) value is typically in much smaller print, if it’s included at all.
And you can buy 2x4s down at the lumberyard.
That NASA thing surprised me when i first heard about it because I assumed NASA was completely metric a long time ago. That wasn’t the fault of two systems. It was the fault of an engineer who was an idiot.
Except that the whole point to Murphy’s “Law” is that you shouldn’t have engineering systems that can have something bad happen. Using two different systems of measurement ensures that somewhere, sometime, someone will screw it up. :smack:
I’m not sure that’s quite correct. The term ‘English System’ is almost exclusively an American one. The Imperial System didn’t descend from, and isn’t a subset of, anything called The English System - it’s the other way around.
That’s the thing–I’m as stuck in the old system as anybody but even I can’t imagine why anybody at NASA or any of its subcontractors would use anything but metric! That he even thought that it was acceptable to not leave his inches and pounds at the front gate is unfathomable. Cripes-a-mighty, doesn’t even the US Army think in kilos, meters, and clicks?
Different people in different places use “English System” to refer to a great many things, including, stupidly, the Imperial System. But “English System” continues to be the collective name for the US System, the Imperial System, and the mess of semi-compatible systems that prevailed in English-speaking countries before the US and Imperial systems were adopted.
Yes, but the point is that it’s predominantly an American term used for something that was imported, after it was imported - like French fries - I don’t think they were ever widely called that in France.
To describe the terms as genus and species implies some kind of descent or hierarchical inheritance, but the Imperial system did not descend from something called the English system - it was the other way around. If anything, the Imperial system is the genus and the things called the US system and the English system are the species, along with the Imperial system of today (which differs from its same-named ancestor), which happen to have discarded the term ‘Imperial’, for perhaps obvious reasons.
When Mars made it very close approach a few years back I went to the Griffith observatory. A scientist from JPL made a presentation. He was wearing a t-shirt that read:
1 mile = 1.6093Km
Hit the planet, win a prize
As far as glancing at bolt heads go, 13 and 14mm are very close to the same distance apart as 1/2" and 9/16", so :dubious:
With that said however, when you actually measure things, metric is way easier.
I percieve the units as I have experienced them. For fluids, I use gallons(milk, gasoline). But fluid ounces mean nothing to me; I have to put them into ml(~30ml/oz)to understand. Solid ounces are also meaningless; they’re either avoirdupois(~28g; a quarter is 7g and costs a lot for the good stuff) or Troy(31.103g). Because I handle such things, I know what they are, like miles. There may well be surviving pharmacists who think in terms of drams and scruples. We who use these units will die off, and metric will win because it’s more efficient for industrial purposes, and we all know how important it is to be efficient. 
That said, I don’t think it’s really a problem. As The Master said, metrification will take place on an as-needed basis, and the need isn’t there. When all the machines made with English specs are worn out and junked, the whole thing will be forgotten…
Easy-peasy. I can explain it so that even Lindsay Lohan can visualize it. One fluid ounce is a shot and 1-1/2 fluid ounces is a jigger.
If I catch your drift you already have an ounce avoirdupois visualized: one lid, and can do a quick hand estimation that the lid is light or heavy. That skill can keep you from getting cheated or beat up.
I’m not so sure. Watching the coverage of flooding in Oxford a representative if the Royal Army pegged the water level as being six inches from breaching the levee and a student, one of young England’s best and brightest and presumably most metricated, said the water on his ground floor was one and a half inches deep. Not just Imperial, but FRACTIONAL Imperial! It’s going to be a while.
[NITPICK]: No such thing as the “Royal Army” - Royal Navy, Royal Air Force but no Royal Army [/NITPICK]
ps I’m with the rest of them around here - the river is a couple of inches from the top of the bank but the floods are about a metre deep
Okay, from now on the British Army will be the Redcoats, the RN will be the Jolly Jack Tars, and the RAF will be the guys with funny moustaches.
Officially, maybe, but I’ve seen a lot of two-ounce shot glasses. Plus an eight-ounce shot glass, once, but that was an obvious gag.
You drink in better places than I. Best I could hope for was the publican getting distracted as he poured so I’d unbutton an extra button. Sure, they’re manboobs, and not especially appealing ones, but a distraction is a distraction.
Yipe, dropzone!
Actually, I think some of it is semantics. A bottle is a fifth, even though it’s really 750ml, and says “fifth” nowhere on the product.
We’re well along a transition to metric anyway, it’s just been so gradual it doesn’t seem like it. The only metric measure that’s a law, I think, is one mandating metric measures next to English ones on food products, and I’m not sure that’s not more of a suggestion than a rule.
A lot of the screwier units are esoteric, and can be safely ignored (a bushel) Unless you work in that field.
No, that, at least, is absolutely false. The Imperial System was not devised until 1824, and does descend from a somewhat chaotic state of affairs for which “English System” is the only name. And “Imperial System” is still the official name, as witness, for example, the NPL website.