It’s using measures that existed before the metric system. There is no rational reason to keep it. But we are Americans, and you can’t make us change if we don’t want to. Besides, we like the sound of “inch” and “quart” over “centimeter” and “deciliter”. We’re used to it, our parents were used to it, our grandparents were used to it, and we have a sneaky suspicion it’s probably French to boot.
The metric system is in place in the USA in the sciences and much of technology fortunately.
Because people resist change, even if it is for the better.
In the UK they changed to metric in the '70s, only because you can’t force people to say the words you want they didn’t really change. Now teachers half-hearted say something about meters and kilos, and nobody really knows what they are talking about. Then they all go home and carry on living with pints and pounds and miles.
Even in the Netherlands, which certainly does use the metric system, people still ask for their cheese in pounds. Because what are you going to do? Police the cheese market stalls and arrest people who say “pound”?
Besides the fact that you have to memorise conversion factors for every unit (12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 1760 yards in a mile), it’s confusingly ambiguous. The unit “ounce” refers to at least 2 commonly used, different amounts of each mass and volume.
Meh. I like customary units. Their purpose is the same as any other measurement system, and they work just fine. I don’t see what is inherently “better” about the metric system.
Well, in America we have freedom of speech so that wouldn’t apply here. I was talking about how everything is labeled, by default, in ounces, feet, °F, etc. and asking why the US doesn’t change its default system of measurement to metric. Sure, anyone here can speak in metric terms in the US as well, but most things are labeled/reported using the US customary system, and that’s what I was referring to.
Personally, I am a super liberal, so I am almost always for change if it’s for the better. I have never understood why some people resist change. I mean sure it takes adjustment, but that’s only short-term. They fail to see the long-term.
Another cosideration is, if you don’t have a job that involves making a lot of scientific calculations (which is probably well above 90% of the population) then metric really doesn’t offer much of an advantage. Does it really matter if the distance to the supermarket is measured in miles or kilometers? No, not really. Is there any intrinsic advantage to a jug of milk that contains 4 liters versus one that contains 1 gallon? Again, not really.
Basically, the overwhelming majority of the population doesn’t have any compelling reason to make a switch.
I think the OP is assuming that there is some coherent reason we deliberately choose to remain with the inch-pound system. As the gist of posts above put it, it’s more inertia and lack of any compelling need for housewives to start cooking by grams and centiliters.
We sort of do use the Metric system. Plastic bottles of soda are 500 mL, 1 L or 2 L (yet we still have 12 oz cans), hard liquor comes in 750 mL bottles (not fifths). There are 5K and 10K races, but maps and speed limits use miles.
In automotive manufacturing part are designed in metric units. When we would get part prints with dimensions, the first thing the tooling shops would do is convert all the lengths to inches.
One of the old bench hands explained it to me like this. “I can feel 5 thou (.005 inches), but not .1 mm” And he meant it, when hand polishing steel block he was just calibrated to inches.
Sometimes it is just really hard to change your entire personal calibration and not just because of inertia.
“Better” is a subjective idea. It is most certainly not ‘better’ for me to re-learn an entire measuring system when the one I know and use works great and everyone I deal with understands it perfectly. You could also say the American English is a messy language, there are many easier languages to use/learn. Why don’t American just learn and use them instead?
And anyway, I think we are changing. Young persons like yourself will probably help make the change in the coming years. Us older folks have been using the old system for MANY years. Change wouldn’t be as easy as you are suggesting. Give it time, grasshopper.
One purpose of a measuring system is standardization. A foot is a foot as much as a meter is a meter so metric system is no better there.
Another purpose is so people can know how much of something there is without seeing it. If I tell an american someone is six feet tall and weighs 250 pounds everybody could easily picture how big the person is without seeing them. If I say the person weighs 550 kilos and is 1.8 meters tall, the average person will have no idea how big the person is. So switching to a measuring system that no one is familiar with defeats one of the purposes of having a measuring system. This would disappear relatively quickly, but there would still be a period of years for the public to get used to the new system. Meanwhile the public is already familiar with the old system and there is no pressing reason to change.
The only real advantage for the metric system is that it uses a consitent base 10 and is easy to do math with. Most people don’t do a lot of math with units of measurement in their everyday lives so the advantage of metric use is outwayed by the convenience of not switching for the most part.
All you people who want to change us to metric, are you going to pay for it? Because there is a shit-ton of stuff to be changed. Lots of signs, measurements, comments, graphics, all over the country. And to be quite frank, I just don’t think it’s important enough to spend the money. There are lot of things that are much more important.
A (non-fluid) ounce refers to “weight”, not “mass”. One more reason metric is superior. The 16oz of cheese I buy at sea level in the Netherlands is going to weigh less if I take it to Switzerland even though the mass is the same.
