Metric system or English system?

Pros? Cons? Should the U.S. change systems?

We had our chance in the 70s and we wimped out. I'm afraid it is probably too late now.

At the very least, it would have been great to get rid of pints, cups, tablespoons, teaspoons. Even most Americans don't understand those, but it's all we got.

I don't remember the 1970's....

Anyway, I kinda like both systems.  My idea is to cross the systems, so you could get the benefits of a decimal based system, without all the pain of trying to learn new units.

I was born in the 60s, so I remember the 70s pretty well. It was pretty much assumed we were going fully metric within the decade, and in school we were learning all about it. Then suddenly they changed their minds.

I knew there was a time we were about to change, I just didn't know when it was.

Metric is easier, unless you include the dewey decimal system.

I definately know what a pint is. . . . Guiness.

A cup  . . . saved my nuts a few time as a little league catcher.

And a tablespoon holds more Cheerios than a teaspoon at breakfast.

Now running a 5k or 10k sounds more fancy than 

3.10685596 miles or 6.21371 Miles

notice I had to cut and paste those last stats.

I remember the 70's/80's push to metric and the fizzle. I wonder, do they still teach kids how to write checks.

Pros first:

Metric:  It's very simple use.

English:  It has cool units like 'fathoms' and 'slugs'.

Cons:

Metric:  Since very little in the U.S. is done in metric most Americans don't have clue what the units represent (this is not a problem for the rest of the world).  km/h sucks.   A kilometer is not long enough and megameter is too long.  Decimeters are never used.  Kilometer is always mispronounced.  Celcius also sucks.

English:  The name sucks.  It has multiple units measuring the same thing.  It has a few really bad conversions in it (5280 ft. = 1 mi.  how many of those do you want to do in your head?).  The name still sucks.

I agree with MagicRabbit. Metric is simple. I work in a restaurant and when I'm prepping food or baking, it's quicker, easier and more accurate to measure out my ingredients by grams. Also, as a disc golfer, we are obbsessed with the weight of our frisbees which are measured in grams. You wouldn't believe the debates we have over throwing a 167 gram vs. 175 gram disc into a headwind. Heavier is generally better.

I think most people in the US are fairly comfortable with grams. We don't really have anything else useful that's less than an ounce.

Yea! so we have adopted metric. . . kinda sorta. Lotsa people measuring things in grams