Inches, Teaspoons and a Ton of Bricks
It's perfectly acceptable to use the metric system in the United
States -- Congress originally authorized it in 1866 and has repeated
those sentiments in the years since -- but tradition tells a whole other
tale. Although the government now requires metric use in some public
sectors and strongly encourages it in many private industries, the
American public never really took to the system and largely dismissed
it, making the United States the only industrialized nation where that's
the case.
In an effort to move the matter along, Congress even
passed a Metric Conversion Act of 1975 and set up a U.S. Metric Board to
take care of all the planning for the desired transition, but they
apparently didn't empower the board with enough authority, and the
American people essentially said, "meh" to adopting metric and continued
on with their miles, pounds, ounces and all the rest. Similarly
lackluster efforts since then have done little to get Americans to
change their ways.
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