It's also a delicious brand of ginger beer, and a euphemism for testicles, but generally in metaphorical reference to bravery. And it's 14lbs. While Britain is metric, British people still describe the weight of people in stone more than anything else. We do people's heights in feet and inches too. And car speeds in mph, and fuel economy in miles per (proper) gallon. Australia is much more metric. People's height is still often in feet and inches, but that's about it.
What makes a proper gallon depends on whether you prefer wine or beer. Unless you abstain and prefer your beef corn fed. I prefer whiskey(note the e) which is sold in liters here. Hard spirits, wine, soda, and narcotics seem to be the only things that successfully converted to metric in the US. I work with it, so don't get the resistance to it.
Or hats, if you're Texan. I prefer it without the e. But I think that's the result of the prejudices my (Scottish) Dad drummed into me. I once decided to surprise him, after an experience I'd had in Japan. I told him I had a 12-year-old single malt (which was completely true), and that he was to try it and tell me what he thought. He tried it and said it was excellent, and that it was definitely a highland whisky (rather than a lowland or island one), but he couldn't work out exactly which one. He was horrified when I showed him the bottle of Suntory. .... and there was me thinking that this song was an entirely innocent plea to the American authorities to use metric. Hmmm..... You're American.... you work with metric..... we know what has been successfully converted to metric in the US (often because it's imported from Latin America)..... Is there something you're not telling us?
thanks man. oh ya, there's a lot of pent up frustration, and a lot of people who think they got a raw deal with abolition. i mean, we're talking how many generations? talk about a grudge.
Oh grudges last longer than a few generations. Just ask our Aussie friend, he's still bitter about his side losing a war to us over 500 year ago. Wars of the Roses - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
If that were the case, I would have had the pleasure of sampling more whiskeys of either spelling, and less money troubles in general. Likely more others, but definitely less money ones. The science fields aren't like Torchwood here. Some measurements tend to use standard units in day to day use, like pressures, but I think it is mostly because the equipment and gauges are mostly US sourced with the standard unit more prominent. The US will switch to metric when the public feels the ease and laziness of that system justifies overcoming the laziness of keeping the standard quo.
Need the mouseover text! "That seems like an awful lot of hassle when all I wanted was a cool sword."
I'd just wish they could have based the metric units on something EASILY convertible from Imperial. But no: they had to be clever.
I think it's easier not to convert - just toss out the old method and embrace the new one. Trying to keep two mostly-incompatible systems in your head at the same time makes it more difficult than it needs to be. Besides, if you were completely fluent in DoubleSpeak, you'd be a politician, not someone trying to make sense of an often-confusing world. Metric is simple and logical, and we could all use more of that in our lives.
25.4 mm per inch? Easy? Hah, I think not, lol. A few decades back they finally made it EXACTLY 25.4. Initially it was SLIGHTLY different, based on some BS, a light wavelength, or some division of a latitude, really useful. 25.4 was ok for local measurements, but builders on large sites started finding multiple inch anomalies, good fun. So yeah, 25.4: what a lovely number. And 454 grams to a pound, good fun too.