Beware... they don't measure like we do!

One of the common excuses that the anti-metric brigade use for sticking with imperial is that the Americans use the same system as us and, since they also speak the same language, it makes sense to use the same units of measurement. This argument holds very little water though, almost quite literally! If you have a gallon of water in the USA it is less than a gallon in the UK... on the other hand if you have an ounce in the USA it is more than an ounce in the UK!

Americans don't use metric

This is another myth that is being slowly eroded. There has been a long term move towards metrication in the USA since the mid 1960's, however like here in the UK this has been consistently swept under the rug as an unimportant issue. In fact until recently one of the many excuses given for not converting to metric was because Communist Russia used the metric system and by sticking with US measures it gave the enemy a disadvantage at time of war.

However, more recently the USA have started to wake up and realize that the rest of the world uses metric and are starting to insist that if the USA wants to sell it's goods abroad then it has to be labeled in metric. The USA can no more go it alone than the UK can so they have been making some pretty drastic changes.

Metric on American roads

Metric in the stores