Why is it, on forums, metric is called metric, but impirial is called 'english'.

I dont get why americans say this when over here in england we use metric, and it seems only the americans are happy in there little impirial world...

Well we used to use imperial units here a long time ago, probably before I was born in fact.

People who still call imperial 'english' are clearly misguided and must have had their head in the sand for the last 30 years or so.

No doubt some of the older generation of engineers still swear by imperial measurements, but as a member of the younger generation I see no merit in imperial units what so ever. Ok for diy bodging its may be easier to say somthing is 3ft long, or 36inches long.... most builders still think in '8x4'. But for proper engineering with small scale stuff, 1mm or 0.0393700787 inches ... its not difficult to see which is simpler.

To be honest i dont really see the problem. Yes metric is nice for maths, and I do use SI units for all my calculations, but as its a click of the mouse in my cad package to swap between the two i dont see what the issue is. I think in mm, where as someone else may think in mils, its only a scale factor difference.

I guess it all boils down to what stock is cheaper / easier to buy, metric or imperial. Over here in uk metric would probably win hands down, but when you start scrounging US made parts you soon end up having to use both metric and imperial on the same part.

I have no problems with either.... and frequently use both if using metric and impirial parts, I dont bother converting, just use different measureing equipment.

My bug it that despite we use more metric, americans still say impirial is 'english'

i used ot work on site fitting partitioning with some "good ol' boys" and they would give me a measurement in inchs and mm so it would be 36 inches and 6mm just to see if i could muck up lol or 1000mm and 3/8 WTF!!!

but what i dont understand is we use metric measurements in industry and finance, but imperial for driving, but the rest of europe is metric all the way.

we should have converted our road/driving mentality at the same time

I think it was decided that the cost of replacing all the road signs was too great.

Personally I like the imperial measurements for roads though i guess thats just cause its what i'm used to.

What did wind me up however was when taking my driving theory test I was asked a question along the lines of "if a car is traveling at x mph on a dry road how many metres would it take to stop after the driver applied the brakes"

All imperial fine, all metric fine, but mixing up the units in the same sentence is just taking the piss .. They could have just said yards rather than metres


... ok so what if i'm being pedantic!