What is an American unit? You are sadly misinformed in your basic education. There are NO "American" weights and measures.
Measurements like pounds, ounces, foot, yard, mile etc. are all "Imperial" units and were in use in the UK (and most of Europe) for centuries before the Americas were discovered.
Even the so-called "American gallon" (3.78 litres), which is not used anywhere else in the world these days, is something that crossed the Atlantic with the Pilgrim Fathers - not invented in the US. The orignal standard measures for this are kept in Winchester, the old capital of England. The Imperial gallon is larger (4.54 litres). Conseqently the "US pint" is smaller than the imperial pint (1 US pint = 0.8 imp pint). The US is the only place where these anachronistic measures are used.
Almost all weights and measures in the UK are metric (the SI system). If you go shopping then goods are sold in kilogrammes and liquids are sold in litres.
There are a very few statutory exceptions to this, the most important of which is that public road distances are still given in yards and miles. That is why Top Gear speaks of "miles per hour".
The other statutory exeption is draught beer sold in pubs must be in pints. But bottled beer and other alchoholic drinks such as whisky or wines must be sold in centilitres.
In general useage people use imperial units for "domestic" purposes (as in "I am five feet ten inches tall" or "the baby was eight pounds four ounces") but metric for commercial purposes (as in "I bought ten litres of petrol and a six kilogramme beef joint").
We don't have any problems with this.
They are NOT American units, they are Imperial units, that we have used for centuries. Where do you think America got them from? They aren't all quite the same anyway - an Imperial pint is 20 fl oz, while an American pint is 16. Order a pint of beer in a British pub and it'll be bigger than you might have expected!
Yes, we are officially metric, but that is only recent - in the last 40 years or so - and it's going to take longer than that to stop us thinking in Imperial units. Distances on British road signs are still in miles, speed limits are in mph, the speedometer in my car is in mph with km/h shown in smaller figures... you really aren't going to change us THAT fast. I was taught in metric at school and have a physics degree, scientists (including American ones) all use metric because it's so much easier so I thoroughly understand it, my father worked in the construction industry and that has used metric for years so he understood it too, but just try telling that to my mother, who grew up with imperial and having never had a reason to use metric, still thinks in imperial.
And then there's our previous currency, which I just about remember as I was 5 when it changed to the decimal ￡1 =100p. Even that got a lot of objections from older people just because it was a change, even though it is obviously easier to work with than ￡1 = 20 shillings = 240d. Key point in any management course - how do you get people to accept change? Not easy with us British!
And there's the thing - it takes a LOT to change us. The biggest movement has been in food, where if you go to a grocery shop or supermarket everything has to be measured in metric, but you still find that almost everything is marked in both systems. Buy a bottle of milk and it will still be a pint, with the measurement in litres also stated on the bottle to be legal. We're pretty much at the stage of being bilingual in measurements, but what we really think in is still imperial. Ask me my height and I'll tell you in feet and inches, or for weight, stones and pounds. (I know Americans just use pounds - a stone is 14 lb.) Despite my education, I'm still imperial-minded.
Oi vey. Americans are insulated and separated by two oceans from the real world. They are indoctrinated from childhood to think America is superior, and therefore, no other country is as important. And that explains why they look inward and dont see another view of anything. Americans think they invented everything, that they saved Europe in WWII, that they are above international law and to compromise or cooperate with other countries mean they are dependent and that would blast the notion that the U.S. must run the world.
Thats my soap box for this morning.
Those are NOT american units, they are British units, formally known as Imperial Units.
Britain still use the Imperial measurements ( miles, gallons,etc ) because we like them. We have got some Metric measurements ( litres,metres ) alongside our own a little. But the Imperial is more popular.
They are British measurements which the Americans kept using after the RW
The reason you use those (imperial) units in USA is because they were brought over with British colonists.
We use a combination of metric and imperial units.
The producers of these British shows hope most of their profits will come from the USA market. If you are viewing the show in the USA, possibly you are seeing a USA version = the British version possibly does use metric.
Miles, furlongs, yards, feet and inches are British measurements
That is an English denial of Napoleon's decimal system
