Again, there is not a single case of a nation moving to metric because the public voluntarily did so in the absence of some kind of government edict. Not a single one.
This, is probably the single worst argument I've ever heard
in favor of the imperial system. Notice how I said "imperial",
as in Empire, as in this system that was forced down the throat
of unsuspecting nations conquered by the brits when they were
busy raping half of the rest of the world.
The American Standard is based upon English Imperial, to be sure, but not only is it not quite the same (it's 'evolved' since then, there are several less commonly used units that have no English corollary) it continues to exist, along with metric, because Americans continue to choose it. I have an American built car that has both Miles-per-hour and Kilometers-per-hour on my speedometer, this is required by government edict. Every freeway sign in my state since ~1999 has distances expressed in both systems, also by fiat. I know many (mostly former military) people in my city that could quote you distances in both systems without any obvious mental effort whatever, but the only time I've seen driving directions preferred in km was when I overheard a conversation between the counter attendant at Mammoth Cave National Park (a young woman of about 20) giving driving directions to some 30-something guy who (by his accent first, and confirmed later when I saw his license plate) was Canadian. He couldn't wrap his head around miles, but this young woman switched from miles to klicks without missing a beat. Which, considering her rather thick southern drawl, I know that most people (from other American states) would have assumed she was uneducated. I'm pretty certain that she has never had to use metric for anything growing up, beyond school work.
It's not just inertia that's preventing the US from switching, it's
just rank, dumb, chauvinistic, patriotic misplaced pride, the
hallmark of a nation that - on average - barely knows the rest
of the world existed until said world decided to come and blow
up a couple of their buildings.
Says you. I use metric at work nearly every day. I maintain massive plastics injection presses and assembly lines for a living. I have to have both sets of tools, because even though most machines are American Standard, there are many machines that only Germans seem to make. I find it amusing that metric bolts don't come in as wide a standard spectrum as AS bolts, and to compensate there are fractional metric bolts in the millimeter range. The engineers there really hit the roof whenever someone finds a metric bolt in a fractional size that also fine threaded. Those have to be special ordered, even though I could buy the closest AS equivalent at Home Depot. The early engineers who developed the standard spectrum of AS bolt sizes during the Industrial Revolution didn't just pull those fractional inch sizes out of their hind ends, nor did they say "hey, I think an eleven-thirtyseconds just sounds good!" Yet the standard specturm of Metric Allen bolts run from 3 mm to about 20 mm hitting every integer number with a couple of oddball fractionals in there for more specific purposes. The standard units were obviously chosen to match the metric system units, not their engineering design goals. I'm pretty sure the same can be said for just about every aspect of metric tooling and hardware.
