We’re keeping our pints too but we’ve already got kilometres, litres etc. for everything else.
I’d walk an Irish mile for a litre of a fine English ale.
I’m a Damn Yankee Rebel and if you remake The Good Life I will personally fly to the Old Country and make bloody murder. You can measure the crime scene in meters or yards, I don’t care, but don’t be messin’ with Tom & Barbara Good!
[/hijack]
If you mess with Felicity Kendall, I’ll open a hogshead of whupass on y’all.
As a Kiwi in the US, I miss the metric system. I reluctantly admit that there might be some valid arguments in favour of some imperial measurements for everyday use (divisibility of 12) but in general, hanging on to the old units is a bit like hanging on to beta video tapes when VHS has clearly won the battle.
A few years ago my aging Dad was doing some carpentry in his house. He made the comment “you know … now that I use metric, everything seems to fit better” 
I would pretty much bet that the US is never going change the same probably goes for further changes in the UK and Canada. I’m quite impressed that Canada has changed as much as it has. It must be difficult living so close to their southern neighbours. I noticed that some things in Canada are really imperial with metric labeling. I saw 1.89 L orange juice cartons rather than 2L which is what the real metric world has.
Actually, they’re often relabeled US Customary units rather than Imperial units. A can of paint, for example, is often one US gallon (3.78 litres).
This, in my opinion, is why metric never caught on in the U.S. Rather than changing the size of everything to a standard, whole number metric size, they tried to keep the existing sizes and convert them into nonsensical metric numbers, AND rather than leaping in they tried to keep both units of measurement to ease the change. When a gallon of milk is now 3.785 liters of milk, it makes the metric system seem hopelessly complicated. They should have just made the large milk jug 4 liters.
Word.
And we in Canada have a mishmash of things that were partially changed.
Take butter, for example. If I buy a whole package of it, it’s 454 grams, not 500, because 454 grams is a pound. But a half-size package is an even 250 grams. Milk is evenly-sized in metric though; 250 mL, 500 mL, 1 L, 2 L, 4 L. Soft-drink cans are 355 mL, but the plastic bottles are 400 mL, 600 mL (often labeled as 591 mL–would it hurt to squeeze in that extra 9 mL?), 1 L, and 2 L. And there’s a wonky 710 mL that they try to push, but it’s just too big.
Drinks from cups aren’t labeled as anything more than small, large, gigantic, etc, but I’ve seen references to ‘20 fluid ounces’ on occasion. No idea whether that’s US fluid ounces or Imperial fluid ounces, but I have my suspicions.
Everything is labeled in metric, though. It’s just that the ‘soft’ conversions–relabeling of uneven non-metric sizes instead of changing to whole metric sizes–make metric look more complicated.
You get 660 feet per 63-64 gallons? Must be a 'Hemi.
They did ? Well damn them for being so impatient.
I’m sure we would have eventually worn the knee-jerk down. 10, maybe 15 generations of boneheaded insular snobbery down the line, tops. You might even have started driving on the right side of the bloody road ! And then we’d have moved on to the whole “cuisine” concept… 
And here I thought we were going to have a thread on the best methods for smuggling alcohol and drugs through airport security.
We do drive on the right side of the road
The right side being the left if you unnerstand my meaning.
Innit?
Hear him, hear him! Huzzahs for stubborn limeys!
America doesn’t want any foreign rulers, join the fight against metrics.
Get the wife to do it.
Bing bang bosh job done…
Yeah, I guess that’s what I meant.
While I appreciate the enthusiasm, please leave the moderating to the Mods. If you see an objectionable post, please just report it and let us handle it.
Also, Claptree has apologized (much appreciated), so this is for everyone else reading this: while the Hi, Opal! bit has been around for years, it was always properly taken as a joke. This new buckeyes replacement is just a way to take a shot at another poster. Feel free to do so in the Pit, but it’s not appropriate in the other forums.
Moderators have hats…
I understood that part. I just missed the sarcasm. I wondered if you had (understandably) confused Harmonious Discord’s comments with actual moderation, but I understand now that the only confusion was my own. In short, I’m just not all that clever.
I have some Canadian National Topographic Service 1:50,000 maps on which the x and y axis are metric but the z axis is imperial, resulting in stupid ratios, such as the gradient of a river being in feet per kilometer. The problem was that when the NTS coverted these maps to metric, all they did was slap on a new grid without re-drawing the contours (which of course would have been a massive undertaking). Whoever made the decision to put out maps that mixed the two systems rather than fully convert one map at a time should be packaged up and shipped somewhere very far away. I can think in feet per mile. I can think in meters per kilometer. I can not think in feet per kilometer.
wh…shhh. Don’t question my edumacation.