Why do not the Englishs use the metric unit system?

As we know, the world use the unique measure system in order to simplify measurements such as meter, kg, kilometer and so on. But I can’t understand why the Americans and the British use mile, gallon, inch instead of the metric units? I always compel to convert units into the metric system in order to better comprehension.

Because most English speakers are irrational people, probably due to their irrational language :wink:

The Japanese building system and home buyers use a version of the foot and inches system. I think that every country should have the measurement system it likes. Down with metric imperialism!

Irrationality again :)) Ilya, I don’t think this is just due to irrationality.

Steve, it seems you are protesting the mental globalization. :slight_smile:

I can’t even read some American scientific articles just because of “Fahrenheit” :))))))

But we do have the metric system in Britain! It is the cause for much confusion, most people still think in the good old imperial measurement way, schools teach metric, but we talk largely imperial.

Coming to Britain as an adult from a metric background, the imperial measurements seemed quite odd. As I got used to them, I began to lose my ability to guess distances etc correctly in metric and had to start afresh with inches, ounces and pints. Now that it is supposedly all in metric in Britain, confusion reigns!

I was confused the names. I tried to write in another topic. Sorry, Edward.

Nasir,

Try finding logic here: We use the decimal system for counting, yet there are sixty seconds in a minute and sixty minutes in an hour. Then again, we divide seconds into hundredths and thousandths. There are twenty-four hours in a day and seven days in a week. That’s not all, though. There are about four weeks in a month and twelve months in a year. The year is divided into four seasons and 365 or, once every four years, 366 days. Western music uses twelve-semitone scales but usually only seven degrees.

How about them apples?

How long is a piece of string? Now, wait a minute, or should it be a moment? And what about agricultural measurements the world over? Is a billion a million millions or 2 millions?

Oh, and I still get a temperature in Celsius, despite all the years of coughs and sneezes in Britain. The Brits never realise how ill one is when the thermometer creeps up to forty, their fever starts worrying them from 104 onwards…

The metric system was invented by the French. Need I say more? :wink:

The Americans use “our” system, but they get it wrong. The US inch is slightly longer than the UK inch, American fluid ounces and gallons are wrong too.

I didn’t know there was an American inch, though I knew about gallons, pints etc.

As in the well-known phrase, “Give a Yank and inch and he’ll take 2.54cm”.

I’m not convinced that inches are actually different, it is just a “factoid” I read when I was a child.

Paper sizes are different. And quarts I think.

Well in a perfect world… we’d all use the much easier metric system and I’d be the King…

it’s not a perfect world…

The fact is that a measuring system only works if others are familiar with the measurement’s units. It doesn’t matter whether the units are metric or imperial. You are going to use the units that everyone else uses and understands. That explains why in Canada, where we are supposed to be metric, we have a mixed bag of metric and imperial. Wherever the government controls the measurement like for temperature and highway signage, we have metric and people have gotten used to it. Where the government is not involved we use imperial units like for height and weight… It doesn’t make us bad people… We use the units everyone here understands. We don’t really care how this affects people in other countries… :slight_smile:

As for weight measurements: if I use stones as opposed to kilos, I always feel lighter. As to the dangers of mixed methods: many a lorry driver used to get stuck under our local railway bridge because they couldn’t get their head round the height restrictions in metric…

In other news: I’ve always found the word lorry so very odd. Gotta love the etymology:

ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: perhaps from the given name Laurie.

“Hey, I was hit by a Laurie.”
“Look at this stallion—a true Laurie driver.”

(Ahem. Sorry. Couldn’t resist.)

As Dick Emery used to say: “Ooh, you’re awful!” [shoves person]

Just imagine it.

In the International Space Station: A Russian spaceman says: temperature - 22 DEGREE IN CELSIUS , …, x-ray wavelength 10^-9 nanoMETER … A Japanese man sends information to the earth. An American is still very busy in calculating. :))
(This was a joke, of course)

Helen, thanks to the French.

Mark, of course, it does not make you bad people. But science and trade need very unique units at the world level.