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why is the US not Metric
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coppercone2:
eevblog where the real engineering happens, because things get personal
CatalinaWOW:
The article in the picture is from my local newspaper yesterday.  It perfectly encapsulates all of the points from this thread.  America is metric where it matters for commerce.  And doesn't really care or have a good reason to change in the remaining areas.

By the way, the fact that newspapers are still published, and that I still take it is another one of those examples of inertia holding onto an old way of doing things.  That and the economic benefits.  I get cheap packing material, fire starter, paint drop cloths and other uses along with the news.  If I went to electronic media I would have to buy all of those things, plus pay for accessing the the media.  And just to get the same marginally worthwhile or interesting news a few hours sooner.
Mr. Scram:
You guys are still going at it eh?  :-DD :palm:
SilverSolder:

--- Quote from: KL27x on December 04, 2019, 06:35:19 pm ---
[...do people in] metric countries say "clicks" or is that completely douchey? Maybe some people say "kay ems," too? Or do common folks just say kilometers [...]


--- End quote ---

Most ordinary transactions in metric countries use just a few units.  Everyone will be familiar with a liter (gasoline, milk), and a deciliter (cream), and some standard quantities of grams like 250g, 500g, etc., for buying butter etc.   People are generally also familiar with Kg (for larger weights, including the weight of persons) and every child will know that there is 1,000Kg in a ton.    For length, everyone will know cm and meter, km and mm, which are all used in daily speech.  People tend to say them like they are written, e.g. kilometer is what they say.

As you said, once you go outside the "comfort zone" you have to start looking things up.

Electronics guys are comfortable with prefixes like Micro, Nano, and Pico - but I would not expect hardly anyone outside of this circle to be familiar with those.
KL27x:
As a user of imperial, I propose we donate some of imperials unit names to metric.

We have a "lick" we could donate to replace meter. A "click" for kilolick would work out. Maybe pronounced as two syllables, to avoid confusion with "lick" over the radio. As in kah-Lik'.
 
We could give away the "peck" for the liter. And then we can buy our soda in "Tupac's," or "Shakurs." The shakur could become its own unit of 2 pecks.

This french guy sucked at naming things.

Shortest way to say 250g is "two fifty grams." Or maybe "quarter kilo." Vs half pound.

The metric ton is annoying, because now we have to also specify "imperial tons." If you guys can't call them megagrams, why not come up with a new name? I propose 1 shaq = 1000 kg. "This thing weighs a shaq!"
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