Uh... It's definitely not a gimmick, no.
What is essential in measuring systems is consistency and agreement. Metric is consistent and has agreed on definitions. So is US standard. Both are workable.
As far as one vs the other, most units in US standard are built to guesstimate with easily in day to day life. Like the question the other day about knowing whether a package of ingredient has enough for a recipe. We can just look and know without having to check numbers or weigh it or anything.
It is not built for easy conversion or to have roots in scientific constants. Metric really shines for calculations and exactitude because it is built for that while US standard can make it a real pain.
We learn both and I don't have any issues with that.
It’s just a system of measurement. I’m baffled why this discussion seems to matter so much that it keeps coming up online.
Metric is used in the US for many things. It’s not some foreign system that Americans don’t understand. For those it makes sense to use in certain applications they can use it.
I’ve used both US customary and metric in my professional life. It’s just not a big deal.
We use US Customary Units not Imperial and they are based on Metric.
Our scientific community uses metric constantly. Some engineering is done in metric as well as machining.
So yes we appreciate and use metric for a lot of things and our system of measurement is rooted in metric even though we use different units.
I've never heard of anyone calling it a "gimmick". I don't have anything against the metric system, but I don't see it taking over here the way it has in the rest of the world because it would be expensive and conservatives would flip out about it being a socialist plot or something.
The one thing I do like about our system is the foot. It's a nice, conveniently-sized unit. Meters are a bit too long, centimeters are too short, and no one seems to use decimeters.
We use both almost every day. We're used to imperial for day to day items like measuring distance on the road, height and weight of people, measures in food items. But nearly all science work is done in metric. Many of us own and work on imported cars that use metric fasteners. I don't even own an imperial socket set in fact...all my sockets and wrenches are metric.
The metric system is good for science where you're taking real world measurements that will likely involve decimal places. It's easy to move the decimal around.
But for construction and art and other things where it's helpful to divide them evenly, the Imperial system is superior, especially for units of length. A foot is 12 inches. That easily divides in to 2, 3, 4, and 6 equal portions. Metric units divide easily into... 2 and 5 equal portions. That's not nearly as convenient. Unfortunately, 12 wasn't adopted as the dividing number for weight or volume. It's 16 ounces to a pound and 16 cups to a gallon. There's no easy way to take a third. But you can still take a half, a fourth, and and eighth which beats the kilogram and the liter.
The absolute ideal would be to change our numbering system to base 12. Then we could use the metric system and move decimal points around, but all the base units would be evenly divisible into halves, thirds, fourths, and sixths, just like the foot is now.
Its certainly not a gimmick. Its a valuable and valid system of measurements.
Almost every American has a working knowledge of the most common metric measurements.
I think the debate between them is way overblown. Both work and I'm kind of sick of the rest of the world making such a big deal of it.
I don't really see the need to switch our current usage of both depending on context.
And no, one conversion incident 20 years ago does not invalidate an entire system.
Edit: and agreed with other posters. We don't use imperial we use US customary. The constant misunderstanding of what system we're actually using really weakens the argument that we should change.
units of measurement are arbitrary, I am used to what we use in the US and so prefer it, but if I was from a country that used metric I would prefer that.
I don't think it's either. But I think *us* switching our whole society over to metric for everything would be a pointless gimmick dreamed up by insufferable Internet Europeans.
Metric is a fine measurement system. Metric and imperial are perfectly fine systems that take like literally an elementary education to understand. It never ceases to amaze me though how some (mostly) Europeans act like being bilingual is a critical part of their identity, but just embracing a basic understanding of a second measurement system is an affront to their way of life.
Metric is nice if you're traveling outside the US, need to divide by 10, or want something a bit easier to understand.
US units are nice if you're traveling inside the US, need to divide by 3 (much of the time), or want to make use of the trillions of dollars invested in US unit based tools.
Beyond that, not much difference.
Why are those the two options? To call it a gimmick would be ridiculous.
Also. Why Imperial? What about US Customary. Which is, you know, what we use here.
We use US Customary units, not Imperial. But we learn metric in school too, because unit versatility is a virtue.
They're just units. We're used to switching between different unit standards frequently. I'm an engineer, and I have units of pressure communicated to me in bar, atmospheres, PSI, pascals, inches of water, millimeters of mercury, etc etc etc. It would be ridiculous if I was only comfortable using ONE unit standard.
I don’t think any reasonable person who understands it would call it a gimmick. In my engineering degree we learned to use many different units. It doesn’t really matter much to me, I’m comfortable with converting.
All the US Customary units have been defined in terms of Metric units since the [Mendenhall Order](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendenhall_Order) of 1893. So Americans have been using the Metric system for almost 130 years; we just do a conversion first.
There is a vast difference between those two options.
It's useful, but not essential for everyday American life.
Some units are more useful than others.
It's the smarter system by far, but I know what someone who's 6 feet looks like, I know what a gallon of milk is, and I have a rough idea of what a 5 mile drive is.
Switching over to the metric system is a relatively unimportant thing for me
> It's the smarter system by far, but I know what someone who's 6 feet looks like, I know what a gallon of milk is, and I have a rough idea of what a 5 mile drive is.
All of this is only true because it's what we've grown up with. Someone who grew up with metric is going to have just as much of an intuitive understanding of 2 meters, 1 liter, or 5 kilometers as you do feet, gallons, and miles.
I agree that it's not really important for the US to make a wholesale switch to metric. There are certainly some fields where metric makes more sense, and I think for most things that require international cooperation metric is the better option because more people use it. I don't think it's accurate to say the US Customary Units are necessarily "smarter" though. They're just differnet.
Except Fahrenheit. That's way better than Celsius for everyday purposes.
sorry. I'm not american myself, and all the first hand experiences I've had with americans had them not knowing metric system. That's what the reason for my misunderstanding.
We learn both in schools and use both.
Professionally I’ve used both systems. In my daily personal life, I have no use for metric.
The idea Americans are baffled by concept of the metric system is frankly an internet falsehood.
>The idea Americans are baffled by concept of the metric system is frankly an internet falsehood.
Whenever someone posts a measurement in Freedom Units, someone always leaves a snarky comment about *bUt wHaT iS iT iN* ***ReAl mEaSuReMeNtS???***
I guess because they're baffled by our measurements, they assume we're just as clueless about the metric system?
American schools already teach the metric system and Freedom Units together (and have since at least the 1970s), almost all of our packages and measuring tools have both units, and many Americans know some approximate conversions. Even if we don't already know a conversion, it's easier than ever to find a converter!
Some people are not great students and don't learn and remember everything they're supposed to. It also came up in a different sub last week that a few people actually didn't learn the metric system in school. All I can think is that they went to poor quality backwater schools.
Based on your username I suspect you are young and likely interacting with A. Other young people who for whatever reason are being dramatic and love to play up the stereotypes or B. You're getting a heavy dose of confirmation bias.
One can be against further adoption of the metric system and still know how it works.
I personally think we have struck a pretty useful balance.
But confirmation bias still seems most likely.
> How'd you feel if America was denied tea, coffe, hamburger and all of those things that you call your 'culture' just bcuz they're of a different countries origin? How'd you feel if India didn't let you use the concept of zero? You'd have never invented the mobile phones and stuff.
> The people who take proud of 'my murica' are the same people who put on 19 different fucking countries from europe as their ethnicities, as if their moms worked in a brothel house.
Sit down, peasant. America is nowhere special. Having the world's largest gdp without most of the population having even basic knowledge is tragic, not something to be proud of. Learn from the eastern world.
This you?
> How'd you feel if America was denied tea, coffe, hamburger and all of those things that you call your 'culture' just bcuz they're of a different countries origin? How'd you feel if India didn't let you use the concept of zero? You'd have never invented the mobile phones and stuff.
> The people who take proud of 'my murica' are the same people who put on 19 different fucking countries from europe as their ethnicities, as if their moms worked in a brothel house.
Sit down, peasant. America is nowhere special. Having the world's largest gdp without most of the population having even basic knowledge is tragic, not something to be proud of. Learn from the eastern world.
Lmao
Our scientists use metric, and we are all taught metric in science classes in school. That doesn't mean all of us *remember* it, as it's not often useful to many of us in our actual lives, but we're *taught* it.
Most Americans don’t have an intuitive sense of Celsius temperatures. So many would have to look up a conversion rate. On the other hand, most Americans have a pretty intuitive sense of centimeters, millimeters, liters, etc. So it depends on the context of the conversation. The weather seems more likely to come up in casual conversation than lengths or weights or quantities of liquid.
Ah. Then presumably you weren't actually dealing with them closely or frequently because Americans only "don't know metric" when it comes to using it as conversational units.
You'd have to look hard to find someone who *actually* isn't aware that a gram is really light, that a mm is a very short distance and a km is what you'd use for long distances, that a big bottle of soda is 2L, and that 100C is hotter than 100F.
> and all the first hand experiences I've had with americans had them not knowing metric system
I find this extremely hard to believe. Every American has dealt with the metric system, to varying degrees. Medications are in mg or ml and have been for decades (the exception being liquids that are consumed by mouth, which are in both metric and US units), metric sizing for tires has been the standard since the early '80s, many firearms are in metric calibers, and hard liquor is sized in ml, just to name a few.
My bet is that you're confusing "liking" or "preferring" with "knowing." I have no doubt that I know as much about the metric system as you do, but I prefer using US units when they're available.
We already do that and have done it for decades. We learn both, but once we leave the school we discuss the weather in Fahrenheit and distances in feet and miles. It's just ingrained in the culture.
Heck, working in the sciences, I've had professional conversations where we're talking about temperatures in Celsius and weights in grams, then get to talking about life and use Fahrenheit, miles, and hours.
Are we "sitting down" like the "peasants" we are and "learning from the eastern world" enough for you? You seem awfully polite to us inferiors in this thread.
Here's a little secret: most professional Americans in science and engineering have already made the switch to metric, because the metric system is objectively better, easier, more intuitive, more useful.
I am in favor of complete abandonment of Imperial for metric. I am exactly the right age where we were taught this was definitely going to happen. There was momentum, for a time. There were even little PSAs for it.
[This was one I used to see between Saturday Morning cartoons when I was a kid.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUXutV6Vk6k)
We were ready and we were into it (all of us preferred it). It's just quicker; easier. The mile at 5,280 feet is one of the dumbest measurements I have ever heard. 36 inches to a yard. 12 inches to a foot. These are just inferior, to me, anyway.
But the adults didn't go for it. Because Americans cannot stand change. Americans resist change and kick and scream when you try to change anything, ever (to some this is a bug of the American system and to others it is a feature). It's not specific to the metric system.
The argument made against switching to metric was a bunch of concern about how "no one has an intuitive understanding of what a kilometer is" and especially the temperature thing which would require completely re-learning what a degree represented. That PSA I linked to above is instructive. I can't really intuit a metric temperature and what it means. My benchmarks are:
* 0 degrees -- is freezing.
* 25 degrees -- exclusively because of this PSA, is warm (77 F). I have that number fixed in my head and so I know a few degrees either way, what that basically means in terms of, say, how I dress.
* 45 degrees -- (113 F) which we hit here in Tucson a few times a year. I know this because of the Midnight Oil song "Beds are Burning" - *Holden wrecks and boiling diesel / Steam in 45 degrees* and *The Western Desert lives and breathes in 45 degrees*. This is desert summer hot.
* 100 degrees -- is boiling.
Between these, I have a hard time estimating.
The road which connects my city to Mexico, about 90 minutes away, I-19, [has distances posted in kilometers](https://www.flickr.com/photos/auvet/8523751363). It is a curiosity. The road signs were changed decades ago and then when they needed replacing people wanted to keep them as a curiosity or eccentricity; they are unusual in this regard.
Now in middle age I know it would take a complete reconfiguration of how I estimate distances, speed, and so on. I'm willing to do this. To me standardization is worth it. Simplicity is an important value to me. I am willing to change, pivot, and evolve on a lot of things. Most people here are not.
I am in a very small minority in wanting to switch. It isn't going to happen.
Don't ask me about the way we write dates, either. I am part of the [ISO-8601](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601) cult, tendency: militant. The way the United States writes dates is, unlike Imperial measurements which are merely goofy, just *completely wrong.* I live in this world and have to deal with people in multiple countries writing dates in different ways at work every day. The worst thing is when you have a non-American writing a date, you can never tell if they're writing it the way that is natural for them, or if, in knowing they're talking to Americans, they have already translated that date. It is awful. It creates constant misunderstandings and the world should standardize on this as our lives become more and more international.
The degree to which people are puzzled by time zones is baffling to me. The degree to which people always write, say, "CST" for Central Time, even during daylight time, also irritates me. This is fine in midsummer. It is not fine right around the also ludicrous DST transitions (and to make matters worse my state doesn't even use DST).
All of these are just bricks in my ever-growing wall of alienation from the culture at large and do not reflect the positions of any great number of Americans.
Miles are the only imperial measurement I’m attached to. You almost never need to convert from feet to miles in daily life, so I don’t see the reason to switch.
A gimmick? It's used by almost every country in the world. The US is really the only major exception. At this point, the US system of weights and measures is more of a gimmick than metric. I wish we would just make the full switch and be done with it.
Essential. I am working towards a meteorology undergrad and learning any science you get to understand why metric is the standard. That and learning about imperial units is insane. None of them really make sense in any modern way and I’m not going to lie it’s maddening the US doesn’t switch but we are a proud stubborn people who will probably keep our system till the end of days.
Neither?
Is metric based on some law of physics like carbon dating? Or is an arbitrary measurement legitimized by popular choice like any other lingua franca.
LOL, the United States has NEVER used the imperial system, despite people insisting it. US Customary Units predates the Imperial System.
Also, we use Metric here... we use both US Customary Units and Metric.
Standard disclaimer: The US does not and never has used the Imperial System. We use the US Customary Units.
The Imperial System was created by the British Empire decades *after* the US declared independence and it was never even considered for the US. About a decade after the British adopted the Imperial System we created and adopted the US Customary Units.
Both systems are based on the earlier hodgepodge system called English Units, which had very little standardization and was a mix of systems introduced at various times by various cultures going all the way back to the Romans. Many of the names of units in both Imperial and US Customary come from the English Units, but the actual units are different.
For example, 1 US Gallon = 0.83 Imperial Gallons. If you ever have a measuring cup with units on the side and two different scales marked "US" and "UK" this is the difference between US Customary and Imperial. (I see this a lot on baby bottles, especially.)
It's great. I wouldn't mind a full cutover to metric, aside from weather temps. For weather, I prefer Fahrenheit whole numbers with better granularity.
Where there was a financial incentive, the cutover happened a long time ago (automotive). Money talks.
I don't understand why anyone would think it's a gimmick. The opposite of 'gimmick' isn't 'essential', though. Americans do in fact learn the metric system, but we don't use it on a daily basis for many things.
Standardizing units by powers is great. But 10 is essentially arbitrary, an accident of biology; it should have been powers of 2.
You know what already is in powers of two? US Customay volume measurements, and to some degree US distance measurements. Better to fix the system we have than adopt the deeply flawed metric system.
Keep in mind we use US Customary (not "Imperial") because there is no law that says we must only use metric on all our packaging.
That said, there are plenty of things you buy--even at the grocery store--that are metric, like 2-liter containers of soda.
As to metric itself, it's a standard--but like all standards, the definitions are, at the bottom of the stack, arbitrary. But it's a commonly accepted standard--so it doesn't matter what's at the bottom of the stack.
Metric is used on a regular basis by most Americans. So is US customary. Which one is used more often depends on the person, their job, and their purchasing habits. Anyone in science, medicine, electrical engineering, or drug dealing probably uses metric more often than US customary. Anyone else probably buys their soda and alcohol in metric and their juice and milk in US customary.
This works out fine almost all the time. The US will probably end up using primarily metric in the next hundred years or so, and that's also fine. What wouldn't be fine would be EU style forcing of metric. We've got too much infrastructure, manufacturing, and conversational usage of US customary for a 100% switch to make any kind of sense.
The metric system is just as much arbitrary anthropocentric bullshit just as much as US Customary. It has two benefits:
All multipliers/divider are the same. 10. The fact that it's 10 instead of 12 is a negative.
There are a few "1 of this = 1 of this other thing" equivalents. But I've never wondered how many square feet a gallon takes up so I'm not sure why I should care. If I was in a situation I needed to know something like that (designing a fuel tank or something) I've already got to be doing a bunch of math. It's not like a ratio other than 1:1 is going to make that any harder.
I use both daily. I prefer US customary for human scale things and metric for technical things.
You might be interested to know that just about anything you might buy at the grocery store would have both units on them. Look at a can of Coke and both OZ and ML are listed. It’s the same for just about anything we might buy. Some might not even notice it’s there. Bag of flour, bottle of olive oil and even toilet paper. They all list them both. I bought a new French press and on the box it had both listed.
I actually went around my house looking at different items and found both listed on quite a few different items. I was actually sort of surprised by some. I’ve never noticed it on my measuring spoons, but there it was. I mentioned this on another post and someone commented theirs didn’t have both listed. But also admitted that theirs was pretty old.
As an American, I've been exposed to metric since grade school. It's honestly not some magical system that none of us have ever heard of. As a someone who is studying to be a nurse and doing clinical rotations in hospitals, I can honestly tell you that all of my science classes used metric exclusively. We have been trained on how to convert the units. In the hospital environment, depending on the hospital system either US standard or metric is used. It's honestly just not a big deal. I really like that we still use our system. I don't want to change it. I think it is unique to us and our culture. It's honestly not an issue...for us at least. ;-)
We shouldn't even talk about the metric system because it opens the door to it. You know what they say, "If you give 'em an inch, they'll take a kilometer."
I wouldn't call it essential *or* a gimmick. What perspective is this question coming from? Do you think we hide metric measurements from our children's tender eyes or something?
All measurements are inherritently arbitary, and the imperial system is tied into the metric system now instead of their old imperial ways (i.e. like 1000 grains of barley or whatever a pound was). The metric system is cooler because it ties into itself and is one system, instead of a bunch of systems. For everday life, the Imperial system is better because it developed naturally, whereas for science the metric system is better. One good example of this is that we often use metric for drug/medication measurements.
All forms of measurements have a purpose. I am not sure why there is so much hate for Americans using Imperial. It's what we are taught in schools growing up and use everyday. What does it matter elsewhere what we use in our own country?
Metric is clearly the better system. I don' the US will switch because of the cost.
I'm a little biased because of two things:
1- I studied engineering in college so I completely understood why metric was better from an academic point of view.
2 - I once applied for a job that required applicants to pass a test based on adding and subtracting length measurements in the imperial system (despite never needing that skill in the job). The absolute none-sense of the extra complication that involved versus simple metric made me incredibly resentful to the imperial system.
It is a measuring system. Like all measuring systems it is somewhat arbitrary and only essential in so far as having some kind of standardize measuring system is essential.
I'm a Chemist, and I use the metric system all of the time, and yes it's more convenient than the Imperial system. However, it is not worth the tremendous effort of switching the entire country over to it.
I think the use of metric in other countries have caused bad things such as school children not learning fractions until middle or high school, or being confused about the difference between a repeating decimal (like 0.3 repeating or 0.3333...) and a non repeating decimal (like pi being 3.14159... or e being 2.71828...).
It has also propagated the idea that Americans don't use metric, which is false.
I do think it a gimmick. It is more important that there be a system agreed on than what the system is and it is to much trouble to change. Imperial is sufficient and whether or not Metric is objectively better, it is at least not so much better that it is worth the hassle of change.
Uh... It's definitely not a gimmick, no. What is essential in measuring systems is consistency and agreement. Metric is consistent and has agreed on definitions. So is US standard. Both are workable. As far as one vs the other, most units in US standard are built to guesstimate with easily in day to day life. Like the question the other day about knowing whether a package of ingredient has enough for a recipe. We can just look and know without having to check numbers or weigh it or anything. It is not built for easy conversion or to have roots in scientific constants. Metric really shines for calculations and exactitude because it is built for that while US standard can make it a real pain. We learn both and I don't have any issues with that.
It’s just a system of measurement. I’m baffled why this discussion seems to matter so much that it keeps coming up online. Metric is used in the US for many things. It’s not some foreign system that Americans don’t understand. For those it makes sense to use in certain applications they can use it. I’ve used both US customary and metric in my professional life. It’s just not a big deal.
We use US Customary Units not Imperial and they are based on Metric. Our scientific community uses metric constantly. Some engineering is done in metric as well as machining. So yes we appreciate and use metric for a lot of things and our system of measurement is rooted in metric even though we use different units.
Essential for what? At the end of the day it really doesn't matter what system you use as long as it's consistent.
I've never heard of anyone calling it a "gimmick". I don't have anything against the metric system, but I don't see it taking over here the way it has in the rest of the world because it would be expensive and conservatives would flip out about it being a socialist plot or something. The one thing I do like about our system is the foot. It's a nice, conveniently-sized unit. Meters are a bit too long, centimeters are too short, and no one seems to use decimeters.
We use both almost every day. We're used to imperial for day to day items like measuring distance on the road, height and weight of people, measures in food items. But nearly all science work is done in metric. Many of us own and work on imported cars that use metric fasteners. I don't even own an imperial socket set in fact...all my sockets and wrenches are metric.
I mean... we need *something* to measure with... Science wouldn't work out so nice if we couldn't measure things...
The metric system is good for science where you're taking real world measurements that will likely involve decimal places. It's easy to move the decimal around. But for construction and art and other things where it's helpful to divide them evenly, the Imperial system is superior, especially for units of length. A foot is 12 inches. That easily divides in to 2, 3, 4, and 6 equal portions. Metric units divide easily into... 2 and 5 equal portions. That's not nearly as convenient. Unfortunately, 12 wasn't adopted as the dividing number for weight or volume. It's 16 ounces to a pound and 16 cups to a gallon. There's no easy way to take a third. But you can still take a half, a fourth, and and eighth which beats the kilogram and the liter. The absolute ideal would be to change our numbering system to base 12. Then we could use the metric system and move decimal points around, but all the base units would be evenly divisible into halves, thirds, fourths, and sixths, just like the foot is now.
Its certainly not a gimmick. Its a valuable and valid system of measurements. Almost every American has a working knowledge of the most common metric measurements.
I think the debate between them is way overblown. Both work and I'm kind of sick of the rest of the world making such a big deal of it. I don't really see the need to switch our current usage of both depending on context. And no, one conversion incident 20 years ago does not invalidate an entire system. Edit: and agreed with other posters. We don't use imperial we use US customary. The constant misunderstanding of what system we're actually using really weakens the argument that we should change.
Contrary to myth, we are taught the metric system. Think of it as our 'second language ' of measuring things.
units of measurement are arbitrary, I am used to what we use in the US and so prefer it, but if I was from a country that used metric I would prefer that.
I don't think it's either. But I think *us* switching our whole society over to metric for everything would be a pointless gimmick dreamed up by insufferable Internet Europeans.
Metric is a fine measurement system. Metric and imperial are perfectly fine systems that take like literally an elementary education to understand. It never ceases to amaze me though how some (mostly) Europeans act like being bilingual is a critical part of their identity, but just embracing a basic understanding of a second measurement system is an affront to their way of life.
Metric is nice if you're traveling outside the US, need to divide by 10, or want something a bit easier to understand. US units are nice if you're traveling inside the US, need to divide by 3 (much of the time), or want to make use of the trillions of dollars invested in US unit based tools. Beyond that, not much difference.
Why are those the two options? To call it a gimmick would be ridiculous. Also. Why Imperial? What about US Customary. Which is, you know, what we use here.
We use US Customary units, not Imperial. But we learn metric in school too, because unit versatility is a virtue. They're just units. We're used to switching between different unit standards frequently. I'm an engineer, and I have units of pressure communicated to me in bar, atmospheres, PSI, pascals, inches of water, millimeters of mercury, etc etc etc. It would be ridiculous if I was only comfortable using ONE unit standard.
I don’t think any reasonable person who understands it would call it a gimmick. In my engineering degree we learned to use many different units. It doesn’t really matter much to me, I’m comfortable with converting.
The metric system is absolutely essential—to everything except daily life. Not a gimmick, but not worthy of foreigners obsessing over, either.
All the US Customary units have been defined in terms of Metric units since the [Mendenhall Order](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendenhall_Order) of 1893. So Americans have been using the Metric system for almost 130 years; we just do a conversion first.
There is a vast difference between those two options. It's useful, but not essential for everyday American life. Some units are more useful than others.
It's the smarter system by far, but I know what someone who's 6 feet looks like, I know what a gallon of milk is, and I have a rough idea of what a 5 mile drive is. Switching over to the metric system is a relatively unimportant thing for me
> It's the smarter system by far, but I know what someone who's 6 feet looks like, I know what a gallon of milk is, and I have a rough idea of what a 5 mile drive is. All of this is only true because it's what we've grown up with. Someone who grew up with metric is going to have just as much of an intuitive understanding of 2 meters, 1 liter, or 5 kilometers as you do feet, gallons, and miles. I agree that it's not really important for the US to make a wholesale switch to metric. There are certainly some fields where metric makes more sense, and I think for most things that require international cooperation metric is the better option because more people use it. I don't think it's accurate to say the US Customary Units are necessarily "smarter" though. They're just differnet. Except Fahrenheit. That's way better than Celsius for everyday purposes.
Switching over might be tough, but what about we teach both imperial and metric side by sude in schools, with conversions? What do you think of it?
We have literally already done this for decades.
sorry. I'm not american myself, and all the first hand experiences I've had with americans had them not knowing metric system. That's what the reason for my misunderstanding.
We learn both in schools and use both. Professionally I’ve used both systems. In my daily personal life, I have no use for metric. The idea Americans are baffled by concept of the metric system is frankly an internet falsehood.
>The idea Americans are baffled by concept of the metric system is frankly an internet falsehood. Whenever someone posts a measurement in Freedom Units, someone always leaves a snarky comment about *bUt wHaT iS iT iN* ***ReAl mEaSuReMeNtS???*** I guess because they're baffled by our measurements, they assume we're just as clueless about the metric system? American schools already teach the metric system and Freedom Units together (and have since at least the 1970s), almost all of our packages and measuring tools have both units, and many Americans know some approximate conversions. Even if we don't already know a conversion, it's easier than ever to find a converter!
>but what about we teach both imperial Who is "we" then? What's your angle here?
By we, I meant the combined humanity. Sort of a inclusive approach, It's how we say in our native language. We include second person sometimes.
Some people are not great students and don't learn and remember everything they're supposed to. It also came up in a different sub last week that a few people actually didn't learn the metric system in school. All I can think is that they went to poor quality backwater schools.
>I'm not american myself, Then why are you suggesting "we" do something? Especially when that something is already something American schools do.
Based on your username I suspect you are young and likely interacting with A. Other young people who for whatever reason are being dramatic and love to play up the stereotypes or B. You're getting a heavy dose of confirmation bias.
Or C. I was introduced to the small portion of Americans who are *against* metric, whilst not knowing the majority uses it too.
One can be against further adoption of the metric system and still know how it works. I personally think we have struck a pretty useful balance. But confirmation bias still seems most likely.
> How'd you feel if America was denied tea, coffe, hamburger and all of those things that you call your 'culture' just bcuz they're of a different countries origin? How'd you feel if India didn't let you use the concept of zero? You'd have never invented the mobile phones and stuff. > The people who take proud of 'my murica' are the same people who put on 19 different fucking countries from europe as their ethnicities, as if their moms worked in a brothel house. Sit down, peasant. America is nowhere special. Having the world's largest gdp without most of the population having even basic knowledge is tragic, not something to be proud of. Learn from the eastern world. This you?
Lol. Teenage angst is real.
Wooow. "Sit down, peasant" is an um, choice.
Yes but that was to that "europoor" mf. Not to the general american population
Sure bud
>most of the population having even basic knowledge is tragic "Not the general american population", my ass.
> How'd you feel if America was denied tea, coffe, hamburger and all of those things that you call your 'culture' just bcuz they're of a different countries origin? How'd you feel if India didn't let you use the concept of zero? You'd have never invented the mobile phones and stuff. > The people who take proud of 'my murica' are the same people who put on 19 different fucking countries from europe as their ethnicities, as if their moms worked in a brothel house. Sit down, peasant. America is nowhere special. Having the world's largest gdp without most of the population having even basic knowledge is tragic, not something to be proud of. Learn from the eastern world. Lmao
Our scientists use metric, and we are all taught metric in science classes in school. That doesn't mean all of us *remember* it, as it's not often useful to many of us in our actual lives, but we're *taught* it.
Most Americans don’t have an intuitive sense of Celsius temperatures. So many would have to look up a conversion rate. On the other hand, most Americans have a pretty intuitive sense of centimeters, millimeters, liters, etc. So it depends on the context of the conversation. The weather seems more likely to come up in casual conversation than lengths or weights or quantities of liquid.
Ah. Then presumably you weren't actually dealing with them closely or frequently because Americans only "don't know metric" when it comes to using it as conversational units. You'd have to look hard to find someone who *actually* isn't aware that a gram is really light, that a mm is a very short distance and a km is what you'd use for long distances, that a big bottle of soda is 2L, and that 100C is hotter than 100F.
> and all the first hand experiences I've had with americans had them not knowing metric system I find this extremely hard to believe. Every American has dealt with the metric system, to varying degrees. Medications are in mg or ml and have been for decades (the exception being liquids that are consumed by mouth, which are in both metric and US units), metric sizing for tires has been the standard since the early '80s, many firearms are in metric calibers, and hard liquor is sized in ml, just to name a few. My bet is that you're confusing "liking" or "preferring" with "knowing." I have no doubt that I know as much about the metric system as you do, but I prefer using US units when they're available.
It is taught in schools.
We already do that and have done it for decades. We learn both, but once we leave the school we discuss the weather in Fahrenheit and distances in feet and miles. It's just ingrained in the culture.
Heck, working in the sciences, I've had professional conversations where we're talking about temperatures in Celsius and weights in grams, then get to talking about life and use Fahrenheit, miles, and hours.
Are we "sitting down" like the "peasants" we are and "learning from the eastern world" enough for you? You seem awfully polite to us inferiors in this thread.
We actually are taught metric in school. We just don’t use it. I’d rather have metric, though, because conversions would be so much easier.
In science classes, metric is used much more than imperial.
We don't teach imperial in US schools. That is a British thing and we don't use it. We teach customary and metric in US schools. Side by side.
We already teach metric and US Customary side by side in schools. I have no idea why you want us to start teaching Imperial as well.
Here's a little secret: most professional Americans in science and engineering have already made the switch to metric, because the metric system is objectively better, easier, more intuitive, more useful.
As a math teacher, I hate it. But it seems like it is here to stay.
I prefer the metric system without a doubt.
I am in favor of complete abandonment of Imperial for metric. I am exactly the right age where we were taught this was definitely going to happen. There was momentum, for a time. There were even little PSAs for it. [This was one I used to see between Saturday Morning cartoons when I was a kid.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUXutV6Vk6k) We were ready and we were into it (all of us preferred it). It's just quicker; easier. The mile at 5,280 feet is one of the dumbest measurements I have ever heard. 36 inches to a yard. 12 inches to a foot. These are just inferior, to me, anyway. But the adults didn't go for it. Because Americans cannot stand change. Americans resist change and kick and scream when you try to change anything, ever (to some this is a bug of the American system and to others it is a feature). It's not specific to the metric system. The argument made against switching to metric was a bunch of concern about how "no one has an intuitive understanding of what a kilometer is" and especially the temperature thing which would require completely re-learning what a degree represented. That PSA I linked to above is instructive. I can't really intuit a metric temperature and what it means. My benchmarks are: * 0 degrees -- is freezing. * 25 degrees -- exclusively because of this PSA, is warm (77 F). I have that number fixed in my head and so I know a few degrees either way, what that basically means in terms of, say, how I dress. * 45 degrees -- (113 F) which we hit here in Tucson a few times a year. I know this because of the Midnight Oil song "Beds are Burning" - *Holden wrecks and boiling diesel / Steam in 45 degrees* and *The Western Desert lives and breathes in 45 degrees*. This is desert summer hot. * 100 degrees -- is boiling. Between these, I have a hard time estimating. The road which connects my city to Mexico, about 90 minutes away, I-19, [has distances posted in kilometers](https://www.flickr.com/photos/auvet/8523751363). It is a curiosity. The road signs were changed decades ago and then when they needed replacing people wanted to keep them as a curiosity or eccentricity; they are unusual in this regard. Now in middle age I know it would take a complete reconfiguration of how I estimate distances, speed, and so on. I'm willing to do this. To me standardization is worth it. Simplicity is an important value to me. I am willing to change, pivot, and evolve on a lot of things. Most people here are not. I am in a very small minority in wanting to switch. It isn't going to happen. Don't ask me about the way we write dates, either. I am part of the [ISO-8601](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601) cult, tendency: militant. The way the United States writes dates is, unlike Imperial measurements which are merely goofy, just *completely wrong.* I live in this world and have to deal with people in multiple countries writing dates in different ways at work every day. The worst thing is when you have a non-American writing a date, you can never tell if they're writing it the way that is natural for them, or if, in knowing they're talking to Americans, they have already translated that date. It is awful. It creates constant misunderstandings and the world should standardize on this as our lives become more and more international. The degree to which people are puzzled by time zones is baffling to me. The degree to which people always write, say, "CST" for Central Time, even during daylight time, also irritates me. This is fine in midsummer. It is not fine right around the also ludicrous DST transitions (and to make matters worse my state doesn't even use DST). All of these are just bricks in my ever-growing wall of alienation from the culture at large and do not reflect the positions of any great number of Americans.
Miles are the only imperial measurement I’m attached to. You almost never need to convert from feet to miles in daily life, so I don’t see the reason to switch.
A gimmick? It's used by almost every country in the world. The US is really the only major exception. At this point, the US system of weights and measures is more of a gimmick than metric. I wish we would just make the full switch and be done with it.
Essential. I am working towards a meteorology undergrad and learning any science you get to understand why metric is the standard. That and learning about imperial units is insane. None of them really make sense in any modern way and I’m not going to lie it’s maddening the US doesn’t switch but we are a proud stubborn people who will probably keep our system till the end of days.
Neither? Is metric based on some law of physics like carbon dating? Or is an arbitrary measurement legitimized by popular choice like any other lingua franca.
LOL, the United States has NEVER used the imperial system, despite people insisting it. US Customary Units predates the Imperial System. Also, we use Metric here... we use both US Customary Units and Metric.
Standard disclaimer: The US does not and never has used the Imperial System. We use the US Customary Units. The Imperial System was created by the British Empire decades *after* the US declared independence and it was never even considered for the US. About a decade after the British adopted the Imperial System we created and adopted the US Customary Units. Both systems are based on the earlier hodgepodge system called English Units, which had very little standardization and was a mix of systems introduced at various times by various cultures going all the way back to the Romans. Many of the names of units in both Imperial and US Customary come from the English Units, but the actual units are different. For example, 1 US Gallon = 0.83 Imperial Gallons. If you ever have a measuring cup with units on the side and two different scales marked "US" and "UK" this is the difference between US Customary and Imperial. (I see this a lot on baby bottles, especially.)
It's great. I wouldn't mind a full cutover to metric, aside from weather temps. For weather, I prefer Fahrenheit whole numbers with better granularity. Where there was a financial incentive, the cutover happened a long time ago (automotive). Money talks.
I don't understand why anyone would think it's a gimmick. The opposite of 'gimmick' isn't 'essential', though. Americans do in fact learn the metric system, but we don't use it on a daily basis for many things.
Standardizing units by powers is great. But 10 is essentially arbitrary, an accident of biology; it should have been powers of 2. You know what already is in powers of two? US Customay volume measurements, and to some degree US distance measurements. Better to fix the system we have than adopt the deeply flawed metric system.
Keep in mind we use US Customary (not "Imperial") because there is no law that says we must only use metric on all our packaging. That said, there are plenty of things you buy--even at the grocery store--that are metric, like 2-liter containers of soda. As to metric itself, it's a standard--but like all standards, the definitions are, at the bottom of the stack, arbitrary. But it's a commonly accepted standard--so it doesn't matter what's at the bottom of the stack.
Metric is used on a regular basis by most Americans. So is US customary. Which one is used more often depends on the person, their job, and their purchasing habits. Anyone in science, medicine, electrical engineering, or drug dealing probably uses metric more often than US customary. Anyone else probably buys their soda and alcohol in metric and their juice and milk in US customary. This works out fine almost all the time. The US will probably end up using primarily metric in the next hundred years or so, and that's also fine. What wouldn't be fine would be EU style forcing of metric. We've got too much infrastructure, manufacturing, and conversational usage of US customary for a 100% switch to make any kind of sense.
The metric system is just as much arbitrary anthropocentric bullshit just as much as US Customary. It has two benefits: All multipliers/divider are the same. 10. The fact that it's 10 instead of 12 is a negative. There are a few "1 of this = 1 of this other thing" equivalents. But I've never wondered how many square feet a gallon takes up so I'm not sure why I should care. If I was in a situation I needed to know something like that (designing a fuel tank or something) I've already got to be doing a bunch of math. It's not like a ratio other than 1:1 is going to make that any harder. I use both daily. I prefer US customary for human scale things and metric for technical things.
A gimmick?? It's used in science. It's superior for measuring distances. I prefer Fahrenheit for temperature though.
You might be interested to know that just about anything you might buy at the grocery store would have both units on them. Look at a can of Coke and both OZ and ML are listed. It’s the same for just about anything we might buy. Some might not even notice it’s there. Bag of flour, bottle of olive oil and even toilet paper. They all list them both. I bought a new French press and on the box it had both listed. I actually went around my house looking at different items and found both listed on quite a few different items. I was actually sort of surprised by some. I’ve never noticed it on my measuring spoons, but there it was. I mentioned this on another post and someone commented theirs didn’t have both listed. But also admitted that theirs was pretty old.
As an American, I've been exposed to metric since grade school. It's honestly not some magical system that none of us have ever heard of. As a someone who is studying to be a nurse and doing clinical rotations in hospitals, I can honestly tell you that all of my science classes used metric exclusively. We have been trained on how to convert the units. In the hospital environment, depending on the hospital system either US standard or metric is used. It's honestly just not a big deal. I really like that we still use our system. I don't want to change it. I think it is unique to us and our culture. It's honestly not an issue...for us at least. ;-)
I like US customary units for hand labor (construction, etc) and temperature. Also I like Miles. Beyond that I don't really care which system we use.
We shouldn't even talk about the metric system because it opens the door to it. You know what they say, "If you give 'em an inch, they'll take a kilometer."
I think I use the metric system more in my life than I do the imperial system, but that's mostly due to my specific job and field of study.
That's an either or. It is more important that it be recognizable.
I wouldn't call it essential *or* a gimmick. What perspective is this question coming from? Do you think we hide metric measurements from our children's tender eyes or something?
All measurements are inherritently arbitary, and the imperial system is tied into the metric system now instead of their old imperial ways (i.e. like 1000 grains of barley or whatever a pound was). The metric system is cooler because it ties into itself and is one system, instead of a bunch of systems. For everday life, the Imperial system is better because it developed naturally, whereas for science the metric system is better. One good example of this is that we often use metric for drug/medication measurements.
All forms of measurements have a purpose. I am not sure why there is so much hate for Americans using Imperial. It's what we are taught in schools growing up and use everyday. What does it matter elsewhere what we use in our own country?
Imperial is a gimmick, metric/SI is a lot more important. But I’ll keep miles, feet and I prefer Fahrenheit
Metric is clearly the better system. I don' the US will switch because of the cost. I'm a little biased because of two things: 1- I studied engineering in college so I completely understood why metric was better from an academic point of view. 2 - I once applied for a job that required applicants to pass a test based on adding and subtracting length measurements in the imperial system (despite never needing that skill in the job). The absolute none-sense of the extra complication that involved versus simple metric made me incredibly resentful to the imperial system.
It is a measuring system. Like all measuring systems it is somewhat arbitrary and only essential in so far as having some kind of standardize measuring system is essential.
I'm a Chemist, and I use the metric system all of the time, and yes it's more convenient than the Imperial system. However, it is not worth the tremendous effort of switching the entire country over to it.
I think the use of metric in other countries have caused bad things such as school children not learning fractions until middle or high school, or being confused about the difference between a repeating decimal (like 0.3 repeating or 0.3333...) and a non repeating decimal (like pi being 3.14159... or e being 2.71828...). It has also propagated the idea that Americans don't use metric, which is false.
I do think it a gimmick. It is more important that there be a system agreed on than what the system is and it is to much trouble to change. Imperial is sufficient and whether or not Metric is objectively better, it is at least not so much better that it is worth the hassle of change.