Laura,
There
is no single official name for the units currently used by most Americans.
Those units evolved over time and are not necessarily a "system" that was
thought out logically, but our units seem to have become standardized thru
use. Now all our units are defined in terms of metric units, so those are
the ultimate basis of all our units.
Back
to your question. It's not proper to call our units "Imperial" units, as
those were the units used by Britain. Our volume units in particular are
different, such as the pint, quart and gallon. We do share the pound with
Britain, but most of the British Commonwealth has now adopted metric and those
units are used much less than they had been used about 30 years
ago.
Most
people use "customary" units to describe our American units. I prefer
to call them "inch-pound" units, as the inch and pound are common
American units. The term "non-SI" units can also be used, as that covers
all things non SI (International System of Units).
If you
have further questions, please contact us.
Don
USMA
Webmaster
-----Original Message-----
From: Laura [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, 2003 August 31 18:42
To: Hillger, Don
Subject:Hello,I had a quick question about the measuring systems used in the world. Most of the world uses the Metric system but the United States does not. What is the official name of the system used in the United States?Thank you for your time,Laura Lavenberg, PA
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
