Dislike of change is a worldwide constant, like gravity.

Also, all measurement systems are functionally arbitrary - be it the kings foot, a rod in a library, or some mathematical constant - all are arbitrary, ours is just a little less rational and certainly less relational than others.

Fahrenheit is just fine however thank you. (My ideal system would be a zero to 200 system, water would freeze at zero and boil at 200, gives you the best of both worlds, and less need for half degrees in measuring the weather - or other human centric temperatures.)

The US government is an original signer of the Metric Treaty, and if you deal with the federal government you're often supplying measurements in meters and weight in kilograms. The military is metric too. Just not so much anything else.

Even bolts on our cars are metric, at least mostly. Every car I've had from MY1986 on has been more metric than SAE.

In fairness however, we're not the only English speaking country using miles still. For that matter, aviation (in most of the world) still uses feet too - inventors privilege I suppose. ;-)

Most Americans are aware of the metric system and have a vague idea of how long a meter is for example, we also know the 0 is freezing in Celsius. I don't think the costs of changing the places we use customary units would pay for the benefits, our soda cans even are usually clearly labeled at 355ml.

I agree we should get rid of the penny, and probably dollar bills, but for a bunch of historical reasons americans don't like dollar coins. (Mostly the size we picked is too close to the quarter)

> really don't like change

> Still using a penny

Sorry, too easy... :)

Americans use the metric system every day. And what's wrong with a penny? Decimal currency has to retain a fundamental unit or there are some amounts that can't be created.