I prefer to call our collection of units U.S. imperial (or American
imperial).
I think we need to convey that these units did originate from British
royalty.
This conveys this while acknowledging that the units used in the U.S. are
somewhat diffeent from their current British counterparts. This counters
the perception that these units originated here in the USA.
----- Original Message -----
From: Hillger, Don
To: U.S. Metric Association
Cc: USMA list (E-mail)
Sent: Tuesday, 02 September, 2003 11:43
Subject: [USMA:26785] RE:
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
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