Some speculation about numbers

[Buddlespit]

We tried and failed.

Aye. The only 'metric' I'm familiar with is kilometers, and that's because it's easy to convert to miles in my head (lived in Germany for a few years). I can't quickly convert kilograms to pounds in my head, and god forbid if I have to try C to F...

When we tried it in the 70's, I was young enough to have been indoctrinated. But I have noticed that the metric system is slowly creeping in. Our computers monitor temps in C, our cars use mm bolts and metric measurements for accessories (I spent many a moon looking for a 60mm throttle body for my Dodge Neon).

[Teunis]

Here in The Netherlands all is (obviously) metric.
I do remember my grandmother expressing a length of cloth per 'el', close to a British yard or three feet.
People still buy things by the 'pond', they mean half a kilo or 500 grams, a shop would get fined if they used it in their advertising as it is distinctly different to the British Pound at ~450 grams.
Even in a place as small as this country before metrication in 1820 a lot of cities used their own definition of length and weight, an Amsterdam Inch (Duim) was not the same as one from say Rotterdam. They ranged from 24 to 27 mm.

Our building industry orders since before WWII a lot of prefab material like dry wall or kitchen appliances in multiples of 30 or 60 cms, 2ft. would be ~61 cms.
This is clearly based on the American 1ft multiples yet rounded down to 30 cms.

I work in an industry where I regularly have to tell people the other system (i.e. not metric) is NOT Imperial but American because the US gallon is quite a bit (~20%) less than an Imperial gallon.
Even though I've been working in this diverse industry for over 35 years I still have to stop for a moment to appreciate something like pressure in (Mega, Kilo, Hecto) Pascal, a Bar (or Kgf/cm2) is so close to atmospheric anything else seems difficult.

B.t.w, do you know Standard Atmospheric pressure is according to the Texas Railroad commission 14.73 psi but the Railroad commission of Louisiana found it equal to 15.22 psi?
Texas won
Standard Atmospheric pressure in the metric system is 14.695 psi and 1 Bar is equivalent to 14.504 psi while 1 Kg/cm2 is 14.22 psi ...

Luckily both the US and the Imperial systems refer their standards to metric, like the Inch is since 1930(UK) and 1933(US) standardised to 25.4 mm exactly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inch
But there's still the problem some trades divide the foot in twelve and others in ten Inches...

[Detonate]

If you go to a liquor store in the US, all of the bottles are labeled in milliliters, but most people still order by the old fashioned designations of half-pint, pint, fifth, or quart. For those not familiar with our system a fifth was a very common way to sell liquor and it means one-fifth of a gallon.