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The Imperial coolness factor

Calm down, I’m not talking about Star Wars. I’m talking about the Imperial units.

Like most people that moved to the US I have the  utmost hatred for the Imperial units. It’s beyond me that this system is still being used by any civilized country on the planet. Did you know that there are about 3 noses to an armpit? Yards, feet, elbows, whatever. It makes no sense.  Ask anyone on the street, citizen or alien, and they won’t be able to tell you how many yards to a mile (1760, and I had to look it up).

I’ve actually had people here ask me how many meters to a kilometer. Are you kidding me?! Sorry, the conversions are just killing me. Miles/gallon to lit/mil, sqft to m². I’ve had several home improvement project where I’ve had to measure stuff, and had I not been extremely careful about what I say around my kids, they would have been damaged for all eternity (Dad, where the f*#$& are you? Can you come and read this f*#$& book to me?).

The only possible redeeming thing about the Imperial units is the coolness factor due to heavy adaption of usage in movies, expressions and phrases like:The whole 9 yards, to bury someone 6 feet under, Quarter Pounder (Royal w/ Cheese). Or inchworm. Ok, forget about inchworm, but the rest of them.

How lame would it be to say you’re going to kill someone and bury them 1.8288 meters under ground? Well, to answer that question: Really lame. Even if you round up to 2 meters, still lame.

In all honesty, I have to confess that I do use Imperial units in daily speak, just because the words feel better coming out of my mouth. That alone, might be why the adaptation rate of the metric system isn’t more wide spread in this country. Metric just isn’t cool in English.

7 replies on “The Imperial coolness factor”

I seriously doubt that they would have ever made the movie if it was called “Hedwig and the Angry 2.54 Centimeters”….

You have wierd friends Peter. But if you want to be an American…then you have to use the “Imperial Standard”. After all, we here in America use it because we beat them Brits and sent them packing along with their units of M…Oh wait nevermind.

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