That’s the same thing in France, but I think it’s just a byproduct of so much of computer stuff coming from the US. Computer monitors tend to be informally measured in inches (though you have to provide the figure in cm as well), and television sets in cm.

By the way, inches have been defined in terms of cm for quite a while now, so they are just a really annoying non-integer multiple of the cm.

> And you see Pfund (pound) in markets but they normalized that to 500g long ago, so it's kinda-sorta in the system.

That’s right, a (metric) pound is half a kilogram. That was defined in a decree by Napoleon in 1812 as a way for people to keep using old units names without giving up on the advantages of the metric system.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesures_usuelles

> picture frames are usually measured in inches.

That’s just evil.

> And then there is the United Kingdom...

Yeah, can’t have that new fangled French thing. So now we buy milk in 2.272 l bottles. On the contrary, on the continent they are happy to sell you a pint of beer, but don’t expect an imperial pint.

I never use these units, other than in fixed expressions like "it goes on for miles". I think exclusively in metres for attempting to measure the length of anything, especially if I'm trying to be exact. Millimetres to metres to kilometres is all automatic. I don't actually know how big a yard is, other than knowing it's very slightly shorter than a metre. A foot is about 30 cm, that's how I know how big a foot is. I'd need to look at a conversion chart to tell you whether I need a t-shirt or a light jacket for 76 °F. I just know it's somewhere vaguely above freezing but not intolerably hot.

For my generation the units still in use are mostly limited to pounds (mostly for people's weight and produce), feet and inches (particularly for people's height), and cups, Farenheit and tablespoons in recipes. I've noticed even those are disappearing slowly. After a long period of dual labelling with $ per lb being larger on the sign, some stores now have $ per kg larger than the $ per lb. My mother was quite consternated when she first encountered packaging only in $ per kg a few years ago. Her generation was raised on the traditional units and switched in their teens and 20s and have been, understandably, confused by the metric units ever since. To her, a metre is thought of in terms like slightly longer than a yard. The metric units are alien and unnatural to her in the same way the traditional ones are to me.

In several provinces, they teach the American units to students as part of the curriculum. Again. After systematically excising every mention of traditional units 40 years ago. Being familiar with American units helps with trade and understanding American literature. That wasn't necessary for my generation (I could just ask my parents or an older coworker what a quart was!) but it might be now.

Not really. It's not like it was developed by a universal consortium. It was created by a European guy and it draws primarily from Indo-European & Germanic languages. It's foreign to someone who isn't already well-acquainted with an Indo-European or Germanic language.

By contrast, most metric units as currently defined are relevant to most people across the globe. For instance, water boils at around 70-80c in Nepal, but most countries have some population that lives around sea level.

Well then it is nothing like the metric system, which was developed by French scientists to get rid of the multitude of units bearing the same name with different definitions depending on location, and with stupid multiples. Which was then further rationalised and made into an international standard. So yeah, the analogy was either woefully uninformed, or a troll.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units

Despite all of Esperanto's qualities, I am yet to bump into a fluent speaker in the flesh.

Stating they are similar seems like a troll to me.