ARGeezer:
I think having a decimal system with the foot as the standard unit of length, the inch as a tenth of a foot, a ten-foot, hundred-foot, thousand-foot and ten-thousand foot measure would be handier.
So you're arguing that imperial measures are less suited to human use (other than the foot)? Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
My preferences don't matter in the scheme of things and I, of course, have no idea what my preferences would be had I grown up using the metric system. But the USA is still largely on traditional measures, for better or worse. I carry some conversions in my head. 1m = 39.37". 1" = 2.54 cm. 10cm ~ 4". 1km = .62 miles. But I have never had the opportunity to obtain customary familiarity with "native" use of metric measures of length. Yet for small volumes ccs are more intuitive to me than teaspoons or tablespoons, etc.
The metrics I live with are truly bastardized. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
