So a European friend asks, innocently enough, “How tall are you?”

I know what’s coming. “Six-three,” I say. It’s a set up.

A roll of the eyes. “Oh, of course, you Americans use that crazy system!”

Right. I meant to say 191 centimeters.

When the subject of measurements comes up between Americans and others, what follows is easy to predict: the eye roll, the knowing chuckle. If feeling especially generous, a European might offer the observation that this is yet another example of American backwardness and arrogance. And how do we respond? Nod sheepishly, toe the ground. Yeah, we’re just bumpkins….

Not me. Not anymore. It’s time to stand up for our American way of measuring! The truth is that for everyday purposes our measurements are simply more logical and more humane than theirs, and we Americans can’t be blamed for being the last race on Earth to take a stand against the French tyranny called the metric system.

“But the rest of the world uses metric!” our global neighbors plead. As my mom used to say: If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you do it?

Those who ballyhoo the enlightened Metric Way don’t seem to realize that they themselves regularly use the rough equivalents of the old-school measures we inherited from the English and still use in the states.

Wine and booze is sold in fifths (now we call them 750ml, because that makes it easier to divvy it up into 750 precisely equal servings), and meat and cheese in 500g hunks, often called “pounds” in the local language. Drinks are served in pint-sized (500ml) glasses, and recipes that once used cups and tablespoons are rendered in milliliters and deciliters and such, but still roughly reflect the old quantities – a cup of this, three tablespoons of that; 2.5dl of this, 50ml of that. Apparently you need a graduated cylinder to bake a cake in France.

“But it’s more precise!” the European home chef exclaims. Fine, except first of all, the flavor of herbs and spices, the potency of yeast, the density of milled grains – all of these vary widely. Obsessive precision in home cooking is pointless. Second, the metric system is not “more precise.” All common English measures have been standardized and accurate instruments are widely available. For the kitchen, they look like spoons, cups, scoops. Not like a chemistry set. We have scales and rulers, just like the metrics do.

Beer until recently was sold round the world in 12-ounce bottles and cans. Now the EU has mandated slightly smaller units in order to bring them in line with the metric system. Now a beer is 11.2 ounces, or 0.33l.

Get that? Smaller bottles. That’s progress? And for what? To conform with some random (but very scientific!) number? And who could possibly care that 12oz doesn’t divide nicely into milliliters? Who did that hurt? Don’t they have calculators over there?

Fat men wearing suspenders explain to us how efficient it is to produce things this way, how cost-effective. No shit! There’s less fucking beer in there! For the same price!

The English system is tactile, visual, born of human experience; it’s rational. Unlike the metric system, hatched in a French scientist’s laboratory, the English system evolved from everyday use: a pint of ale is a nice sit-down, a jigger of rum is a good slap in the face, a pound of meat makes a stew, a bushel of apples is good for a half dozen pies, a yard is one stride along your frontage, a cup is a cup, a foot is a foot, etc.

Let’s think about that foot for a moment. It conjures a concrete image, easy to get the mind around: some dude’s clodhopper. Feet are good for measuring things around the house or barn; a meter is too big for most things and a centimeter is too small. Giving a foot 12 inches was not random; it provides a full 50% more divisors than base-10 metric: you can easily see where to cut it in half, thirds, and fourths. English measures are all similarly divisible, and each sub-unit has a nice name: yard, foot, inch. Gallon, quart, pint, cup.

Think of the cup. Though on one hand it is a very specific measure (8 ounces), it is also concrete, you can visualize it. Now close your eyes and picture 2.5dl. Is it bigger than a breadbox?

Our global friends throw up their hands and cry “Oh my God! Your system is so ridiculously complicated!” Huh? There are like four numbers to remember: ounces in a pound, inches in a foot, fluid ounces in a gallon, and… I forget the other one. You can teach it to an eight-year-old in ten minutes. “But!” the metricists stammer, “but what about the yards in a mile! It’s some crazy number!” Granted, but aside from schoolmarms, who frickin’ cares how many yards are in a mile? (As for road builders, let them use metric if they find it easier. Can’t imagine why they would, but that’s their business.)

And what of temperatures? They tell me the centigrade system makes perfect sense: zero freezes water and 100 boils it. Except when I’m heading out for a stroll, do I really care how close the air temperature is to freezing or boiling water? Are those useful guideposts? And if I’m making ice cubes or tea, do I need to know the temperatures involved? But that crazy Fahrenheit system! So much to remember! Well, yes, you do have to know 32 and 212 if the freezing and boiling points of H2O are important to you. Boy, that was tough. But if you’re interested in whether the weather is fit for human activity, it seems to me that Fahrenheit makes a lot more sense: zero means “Too damn cold, don’t go out there!” and 100 is the same on the other end. Everything in between is within the feasible range for human activity: closer to zero, closer to Too Cold, closer to 100, closer to Too Hot. It’s temperature measurement on a human scale.

“But the metric system is scientific!” they tell us. Indeed. So is in vitro fertilization. Is that better than the old way? The English system might not be as adept for scientific or industrial calculations, but for everyday purposes who cares? It makes no difference. Why should every single quantity of everything you eat, drink, touch, heft or eyeball in the course of a day be more abstract and less convenient, just to appease manufacturers and chemists?

They tell us metric is “easier” because it’s simpler to multiply or divide by ten. But when is this necessary? How the hell often do you need to divide the beer you are drinking by ten, or multiply your sugar by a hundred? How do I profit by being able to easily tell you “Hey, by the way, that 400 kilometer road trip you took? That’s exactly 400,000 meters!” or “Did you know that bag of flour weighs a half kilo, which is 500 grams?” “Wow! You’re 190 centimeters tall? That’s 1,900 millimeters! Can’t do THAT in the U.S. system, CAN you? Heh heh heh.”

Yes, brilliant.

The metric system is based on pure logic, they tell us, and so is easy to explain. A gram, for example, is precisely the weight of a cubic centimeter of water at sea level. So simple, you can explain it to a child: “Just imagine how much an imaginary cubic centimeter of water weighs at sea level. OK, now multiply that by a hundred. Presto! That’s a kilo!”

Blink, blink, blink.

In the U.S. system, you shake your fist at the brat and say, “This is a pound right here. Do your homework, and you won’t have to eat it.”

I imagine a BMW engineer now shaking his head, embarassed for me. “But everyone’s fist is a different size!” he says. “You really can’t use that as a basis for–”

POW!

And height. How many meters tall is a person? Answer: somewhere between one and two. Now that’s useful. Not to worry, we can easily express it in centimeters: somewhere between 100 and 200, unless you’re really tall. You prefer millimeters? Kilometers? No problemo!

For decades the argument has been forwarded that having different measurement systems will gum up international trade irremediably. Apparently this hasn’t happened. (Credit derivatives seem to have done the job, though.)

The metric system is simply not built around human experience; in fact, it was designed expressly to overcome that perceived fault. To grasp it you must ponder not the concrete experience of life, not household objects or human forms, but rather scientific concepts which to normal people are mere abstractions – the imaginary cube of water, the distance around the earth. All divided and re-divided into tens, endlessly. There is no advantage to it for everyday use; it’s just inane scientificism. The world has bought into the notion that what’s good for business is good for us. It’s a lie.

Let’s go back to that .33 liters bottle of beer. If you put three together, it makes .99 liters. 30 bottles add up to 99 liters. No, it’s not an even figure. Why? Because the decimal system does not allow thirds.

How is it possible that your system of measurement cannot divide an amount into three equal parts? You can do it in pounds and ounces, or in inches and yards, gallons or quarts, but metric? A third of a liter, a third of a kilo? Digits repeat infinitely; it’s a THEORETICAL number!

How can you divide a kilo of sausage into a theoretical number?

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