I graduated High school two years ago. We didn't sit around and measure things, but whenever it did come up in example problems or whatever it was probably english units. So to say the Metric System is used more in the classroom isn't necessarily correct. BUT, Americans do understand the metric system (it's pretty darn easy) and have had experience in school with it. I'm in favor of switch over in some ways, but there's no need to go all the way seriously. What difference does it make that they have to kmh and mph on the speedo of your car? Like a $1 more per car in cost or something? For the everyday joe changing to metric wouldn't do much. They'd just buy ham in kilos instead of pounds at the deli, and how does that improve the system? I can understand going to metric in places where it is definately holding us back the steel industry problem mentioned for example. But I'll always call myself 6' tall, not 1.8288 Meters. I guess the point of my rambling is that yes we should change over where necessary, but it's not really necessary everywhere. If you've lived your whole life knowing about how far a mile is, how much a pound weighs, about how long is a foot, about how long is an inch, about how much water is in a cup and so forth and so on, it's not going to be easy to change those types of measurements.
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I will not conform, you can pull my sae 1/4-20 socket head cap screw from my cold dead fingers.