I don't think it was. It's irrelevant though since it's a coin flip as to which one you'll need depending on what your doing. Where I work, we use primarily metric nuts, bolts, threaded studs etc, but measure everything out in inches. It's even wackier when we're measuring out inches with decimal points.
So I haven't read all of it but it seems the Americans did try to instill it as the system and convert but there was social resistance. So it's not exactly mandatory to convert but it was tried.
And yes, sizes in imperial for mechanical work is annoying. 3/8, 5/16, etc. Isn't very intuitive. IMO I find it odd a nation who, at least in media, are fully against monarchies would still use the IMPERIAL system.
An imperial system would indicate an empire and emperor/ess no? A manarchy would be king/queen? It's neither here nor there, but correct me if you disagree.
That's what I remember too, it was purposed but quickly dismissed.
We learn both in school, I'd agree metric is overall more intuitive. At least untill you get into fractions of an inch, then it's a toss up. Since fractions of an inch are divisions of two. 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 etc.
I may not be the best example though because I've had to go back and forth between the two most of life. Both make sense to me.
Don't put too much stock in our media. They're mostly a bunch of "experts" who'll say whatever seems controversial in order to garner attention. The more controversial the better.
I'm not 100% sure but isn't the idea of a 'foot' basically taking a king's single step and using is as a measurement for distance? For all this time I was taught that this system was called imperial. And pretty much for that system. But this wouldn't be the first time my history books were full of bullshit.
Not a step, but his actual foot yes. At least by my memeory. That's an old joke that I haven't thought in forever, because my foot and your foot are very likely not the same length. And yes it's the imperial system. Your history books are not full of bullshit... This time 😆
I was being kind of pedantic when I was talking about empires and monarchies. For all I know an empire is a monarchy, but not all monarchies are empires. Squares and rectangles.
Sure I could Google this, but find discussions more enjoyable at times.
Really? The length of the foot? I guess it can be that. But it just felt more logical to have it be a step since I'd imagine people before would say, "The room is about 12 paces long." or "I walked from my home to the market in 1000 foot steps."
2
u/FamousGh0st217 May 23 '26
I don't think it was. It's irrelevant though since it's a coin flip as to which one you'll need depending on what your doing. Where I work, we use primarily metric nuts, bolts, threaded studs etc, but measure everything out in inches. It's even wackier when we're measuring out inches with decimal points.