Why are we the only country that has not converted entirely to the metric system?
362853
Yeah, good question!\nI think to test how much America is influencing the world!\nThe metric system is much easier and much better and its fractions are easily measured.\nSome countries in the Arab Gulf are now using gallons for fuel instead of litres! Although litres are easier.. and using square feet instead of square meters to measure lands, yet the latter is easier.. but seems that the influence is working already on the Arabs in the gulf... so who knows, maybe it'll work on the rest of the world and on that day America will be the World's Empire.
73397
Very good question.  Because of conventions.  A country has a certain time zone that geographically would correspond to its neighbor, for commercial reasons.  So they "adopt" a certain time zone, the one "next door".  Or one same region or country cannot have two time zones, so they unify it in one time zone and then the line is not straight.
1067150
We will become metric when we finally elect people with vision and we have a higher regard for education and other countries.\nIn other words no time soon.Every answer against going metric can be easily debunked. It's mainly because Americans relish their arrogance and ignorance.It's still a baby country in the grand scheme of things with a collectively low I.Q. and E.Q.
928331
same reason the U.S. won't change measuring systems. We like what we know. Someone once told me that the U.S. and Sri Lanka are the only countries that use our measuring system, yet it appears on nearly everything. As long as you coddle us and let us have our way we'll keep doing it.\n\nI'd never seen yyyy-mm-dd before. We use the mm/dd/yy system in the US and I'd seen dd/mm/yy in my Spanish classes (which was very confusing the first time I saw it because it was talking about october 11 which I read as november 10.)
577217
It's been done before, most recently during the French Revolution.  It just wan't popular enough to stick.  I suppose the reason is similar to the lack of acceptance of the metric system in the United States -- people get used to it a certain way, and are reluctant to change.
371120
If you look at the world at large, only two countries still use the archaic English system of measurement. The British, and the United States. Everyone else uses the metric system.\n\nCycling is still very largely a european sport, and as such, road bikes are measured in centimeters.\n\nEven mountain bikes are starting to use metric measurements with regards to their frames. Bikes are now being marketed as small, medium, large, and so on. However, when you take a deeper look at the frame specs, you'll find nothing but metric measurements.
445097
..People were unfamiliar with the metric system and there was a big enough economic base to survive without changing. A lot of common sayings don't use metric. "A miss is as good as a mile." "Give him an inch and he'll take a foot". \n..The Fahrenheit temperature scale is more human oriented. Zero degrees is really cold. It feels like there is no heat left. One hundred degrees is too hot. There are almost twice as many degrees between too cold and too hot in Fahrenheit as in Centigrade.\n..I would prefer metric except on my outdoor thermometer.
141959
There are several elements:\n- For historical reasons, the USA developed its own system of measurement. This is in fact NOT the imperial system of measurement, although it is based on the imperial system. It is correctly known is te USA system of measurement. The following reference discusses this in more detail.\n- The reasons for changing to metric are well known. However, there are huge costs to doing so. The population has to be reeducated which takes years and during this transistion period there are a lot of difficulties. Factories have to be retooled, machines replaced, and so on. The USA watched Canada switch over and many people felt the costs outweighed the benefits. I speak as a Canadian and as pro-metric, but I recognise the disruption to industry and to the life of older people who struggled with the change.\n- The USA also benefits from a huge internal market. Whereas most countries are largely dependent on foreign trade, the size of the USA market means that they are much less dependent on foreign trade so there is less pressure on them to change to metric to match up with their trading partners. This is less true of smaller countries.\n- There is also people's general resistance to change. The American population as a whole neither wants to nor sees a need to change to metric.\n- The political element is also important. Any senior politician who was strongly pro-metric (and looked like he could force the metric system through) would find this a major liability for his electoral chances.\n- There are also emotional connections to historical items\n\nThe list goes on. It is a complex issue and unlikely to be resolved soon. However, my personal belief is that one day the USA will follow the rest of the world and go metric.
91242
There's lots of confusion about different systems of measurement.  For example a US quart is different from an English quart which is differnt again from a litre.\n\nActually the metric system is the official system of measurement of most of the world, including the US, thoug in the US it isn't used much in a real sense.\n\nWhen you say the English system, which system do you mean?  The term can have more than one meaning.  Do you mean the metric system?
299652
Doing for the entire population makes it hard to compare countries. Most birth and death rates are in the single digits per thousand, so you would have to keep saying "zero point seven percent" (7 syllables) instead of "seven per thousand" (5 syllables).
534945
It has only partly done so.  Other than resistance from consumers meaning old and metric systems are quoted together on food and drinks, and clothes sizes and other bought goods (except for pretrol for some reason) - Speedomoters in cars and speed limits remain in miles - not kilometres/ per hour.  The introduction of the dual system was in the early/mid seventies shortly after they joined the EEC.
267272
The "metric" systems used long ago, or measurement systems used long ago?\n\nThe metric system was developed in France at the end of the 18th century (late 1700s).  They defined their units of measurement originally by physical objects.  Today, we are a bit more advanced with how we define the metric units, only one of them (the kg) is still defined as an actual object's.\n\nBut their were obviously lots more systems of measurement before the metric system.  I dont know too many of the more obscure systems, but their were units of distance such as the "hand" and the "cubit" (you'll see that one used the bible a few times), as well as "stones" for mass.
249441
Time now, is a universal thing.  It would be a pain to convert different time measurements.\n\nBack then when clocks and wristwatches weren't invented yet, different civilizations had different ways of telling time because of the lack of world-wide communication like we have now.  With today's technology it is easy to have a universal system for time.
105116
The English system of measurement grew out of the creative way that people measured for themselves.  Familiar objects and parts of the body were used as measuring devices.  For example, people measured shorter distances on the ground with their feet.\n\nWeight:\n\n16 ounces (oz) = 1 pound (lb)\n2000 lb = 1 ton\n\n \nCapacity:\n\n3 teaspoons (tsp) = 1 tablespoon (tbsp)\n 16 tbsp = 1 cup (c)\n8 ounces (oz) = 1 c\n2 c = 1 pint (pt)\n2 pt = 1 quart (qt)\n4 qt = 1 gallon (gal\n\n\nMetric system of weights and measures planned in France and adopted there in 1799; it has since been adopted by most of the technologically developed countries of the world. It is based on a unit of length, called the meter (m), and a unit of mass, called the kilogram (kg). It is easier to convert from one unit to another since it is in power of 10.\n\nEx.  10 cm = 1 dm, 10 dm = 1 m,  100 cm= 1 m\n\nMetric to English\nLength:\n\n1 mm = 0.04 in\n1 cm = 0.39 in\n 1 m = 39.37 in = 3.28 ft\n1 m = 1.09 yd\n1 km = 0.62 mi\n\nWeight:\n\n1 g = 0.035 oz\n1 l = 1.057 qt\n\n\nCapacity:\n\n1 ml = .2 tsp\n1 l = 1.057 qt\n\n\nEnglish to Metric \nLength:\n\n1 in = 2.54 cm\n1 ft = 30.48 cm = 0.305 m\n 1 yd = 0.914 m\n1 mi = 1.609 km\n\n\nWeight:\n\n1 oz = 28.350 g\n1 lb = 0.453 kg\n\n\nCapacity:\n\n1 tsp = 5 ml\n1 c = 236 ml\n1 qt = 0.946 l\n1 gal = 3.785 l\n\n\nLength:\n\n12 inches (in) = 1 foot (ft)\n3 feet  = 1 yard (yd)\n 5280 feet = 1 mile (mi)
722267
damned metric system. :)
243843
Way back in the days of kings, measurements were parts of the king's body, and it changed from king to king, but was always similar. That's where a foot came from, it was the length of the king's foot. An inch was from the knuckle to the tip of the thumb. Then after awhile they realized this was innaccurate because if you had different kings yoru measurements were off, and when the king died you got new measurements, so then they standardized it. Then someone had a competition in France to see if someone could come up with a better system, and the metric system was the winner.
904975
Because the real mass of atoms are too small or to complicated to be written in regular mass unit (like grams). It just standard constant to make the calculation and writing easier.\nIt's like using light year to measure distance in space instead of miles or kilometers.