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Why Don’t Americans Use the Metric System?

Weird History | September 5, 2025



If you grew up in the United States, you probably learned the United States Customary System (USCS) for weights and measures. USCS terms like inches, feet, pounds, and miles are derived from the British Imperial System, steeped in a long history of application and use. Any introduction to the metric system may have muddied the measurement waters, adding unfamiliar words and awkward conversions to your school day.

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Comments

This post currently has 40 comments.

  2. @Sacto1654

    September 5, 2025 at 5:40 am

    Oh, it could be done, but the cost would be measured in the TRILLIONS of dollars to the US economy. The phase-in would have to take at least 10 years to complete.

  5. @resrussia

    September 5, 2025 at 5:40 am

    I find videos about interesting because they often omit some interesting questions and facts.
    For example, this video does not discuss a simple question: What is the legal definition of a foot, quart, gallon, or pound?
    If we took a poll on the question of the legal definition of a foot, I would bet a year's wages that well over 90%-95% respondents would say that a foot is legally defined as 12 inches.
    However, this answer is incorrect. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, a division of the U. S. Department of Commerce, states that the legal definition of a foot is 0.3048006 meters. This suggests that the word "foot" is a word used to represent the idea of 0.3048006 meters. The same holds true for a pound ( 0.45359237 kg).
    I am not sure why videos dealing with why America doesn't use the metric system, neglect dealing with the fact that imperial measures in the US are defined legally in terms of the metric system and the Mendenhall Order of 1893 issued by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, a division of the US Treasuryt Department, that legally defined imperial system in the US.

  6. @frankl1955

    September 5, 2025 at 5:40 am

    Some things better, some things worse. The Fahrenheit scale excels at representing temperatures as it has almost double the Resolution as The Celsius scale does. As an example, there are 100 data points for the Celsius scale to depict the range of water freezing and boiling, whereas there are 180 data points for the Fahrenheit scale representing the same range of temperature.

  11. @bobherget7676

    September 5, 2025 at 5:40 am

    The metric system of measurement is simple, with that simplicity being the only thing that it has going for itself.
    Metric has too many limitations for everyday use, especially when the superior Imperial/USCS is conveniently available for anyone to use.
    The USCS is much more finely tuned to the measurement needs of human beings.
    The simplicity of the metric system does make it ideal for use by simpletons.
    The use of USCS does require a slightly higher level of intellect than that of a simpleton, but it is immensely more useful than metric for use in the everyday lives of people.

  15. @frankharris3159

    September 5, 2025 at 5:40 am

    As usual, another unit shaming video ridiculing the US for using the USCS for weights and measures. And then many bloggers follow up with numerous derogatory terms to continue to shame the US for not fully transitioning to SI. I get that the USCS is messy, cumbersome, and not as straightforward as SI. SI in general is a better system than USCS. But the visceral that these videos and bloggers are using to ridicule the US for still using USCS is a bit much. It is what I as an engineer have worked with for 30 years in the fluid mechanics and thermodynamics fields. While in undergraduate in North Carolina I only used SI. But once I graduated and started my career I had to immediately switch solely to USCS.

    While we can disagree on what system of weights and measures should be used. The constant unit shaming and ridiculing for using USCS is unnecessary.

  16. @Bonserak23

    September 5, 2025 at 5:40 am

    I always thought it was so Americans would be so confused when they travel abroad that they would be like "what the hell is this place? I gotta get back to the states now".

  20. @Caracajou

    September 5, 2025 at 5:40 am

    Try driving around Canada and pay close attention to their speed limits. Canadians drive way slower than Americans due to using kilometers per hour. Everyone here in the US knows that if the US switched to metric speed limits the very first thing the government will do is slow down all speeds nationwide. That's why we stick with miles, unlike our docile neighbors to the north.

  26. @Armory508

    September 5, 2025 at 5:40 am

    Perhaps because America was the industrial powerhouse of the world and all our machines and tools were imperial. Too expensive to just switch over. I run a machine shop with 4 lathes and a CNC and milling machine. I'm not switching to mm, much cheaper and economical to just convert.

  27. @wojtas-4

    September 5, 2025 at 5:40 am

    Polska przez wiele lat była pod rożnymi zaborami (okupacjami), tam gdzie mieszkam 110 lat temu był zabór Rosyjski. Jednostka masy były FUNT, nadal mam komplet oryginalnych rosyjskich funtowych odważników. Jak dobrze pamiętam 1 Rosyjski FUNT to ok 1,2 kg

  28. @HenriBourkel

    September 5, 2025 at 5:40 am

    The huge advantage of the Metrical System (officially called SI, Système International) is that all units are interconnected like the cogwheels of a clockwork.
    Example: 1 liter of freshwater weighs exactly 1 kilogram, takes up the space of exactly 1 cubic decimeter (1000 liters=1 cubic meter of water), boils at exactly 100 degrees Celsius and freezes at exactly 0 degree Celsius.🤓

  29. @hebneh

    September 5, 2025 at 5:40 am

    When the price of gasoline went over $1 / gallon in 1979 – which was considered a huge mental adjustment at the time – the first state in which this happened was Hawaii. And since there were still old mechanical gas pumps that couldn't display prices above 99.9c a gallon, the state switched to selling gas by the liter. That continued till 1988, when it switched back to gallons. That was probably the most significant metric switch that's occurred in any US state.

  30. @hebneh

    September 5, 2025 at 5:40 am

    I've noticed that in countries that formerly used the Imperial system, people still use the foot since it's conveniently positioned between the millimeter and the meter.

  31. @hebneh

    September 5, 2025 at 5:40 am

    The US did, in fact, start switching to metric in the late 1970s…but when Reagan was elected president in 1980, the Republicans shot this process down. If that hadn't happened, by now we would have long since made the changeover and all the discussion and obstinate denial would be forgotten in the past.

  33. @WolfHeathen

    September 5, 2025 at 5:40 am

    You use metric in almost everything except for distance, weight, and temperature:

    There's 10 pennies in a dime and 10 dimes in a dollar. The word "cent" literally means "hundred", which is what the metric system is based on. Ingredients and nutritional information is listed in grams. Large bottles of soda are listed in liters; 1 liter, 2 liter, 3 liter, and so on. The reason for this is because soda is shipped internationally. If you see a dairy bottle/container that's listed in "American" units, that's because they're not being exported. Medication is all in milligrams or milliliters. Syringes are all in "CC", which stands for "cubic centimeter". You make movies on millimeter film and you use lenses measured in millimeters. You car engine cylinder volume is no longer measured in cubic inches, it's measured in liters. Tools in "American" units are all adapted to match the metric system. For example, take the twelfth socket in a socket wrench kit from a US unit set and a metric set and they'll both be exactly the same size. They'll all match one for one. Same thing goes for any non-adjustable tools like combination wrenches, etc.

    The US is a lot more metric than Americans seem to realize, and yet they don't freak out when confronted by any of the metric systems they already do have simply because they're used to it.

  37. @GH-oi2jf

    September 5, 2025 at 5:40 am

    We (in the USA) are free to use either Metric or US Customary units. When we use US units, it is because they are convenient and practical and because we may. We use Metric units when necessary. For example, the medical industry is nearly entirely Metric, so anyone who uses medicine must use Metric units. Nations which use Metric units for all ordinary purposes do so because general conversion was coerced.

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