The USA wonders why it is slipping into irrelevance?

Maybe you should also consider the metric system too! How many pecks in a bushel, fluid ounces in an oil barrel and rods to the acre again?

"The USA wonders why it is slipping into irrelevance?

This is a real problem. And I think it is a bit like language. Children pick up new languages easily; But for adults, it's hard. I'm not talking about simple resistance to change, which is very real, and what most people in my country suffer from. I'm talking about shifting one's brain from thinking in terms of one set of units to another, after one has decided that he really wants to.

The imperial markings were eventually banned.

You have to understand how my countrymen (and women) think. In our own minds, we will still be "The Greatest and Most Free Country in the World", with heads firmly planted in the sand (or up our asses), long after the rest of the World is just snickering up their sleeves at us.

And let's face it, kilograms suck - something that heavy needs to have something larger than a gram as in intermediary - even when we were learning this stuff, being told that something was about 500 grams made no sense at all.

There is the "decimetre" unit (1 decimetere == 10 centimetres), and I assume there is an equivalent for mass (decigrams?) - but they're almost never used outside of elementary school math & science exercises.

There is the "decimetre" unit (1 decimetere == 10 centimetres), and I assume there is an equivalent for mass (decigrams?) - but they're almost never used outside of elementary school math & science exercises.

That's a Canadian problem. The decimeter is frequently used in other places.

I've never heard anyone having problems with meters and grams being too small.

I cant help but wonder how you two can work with computers since, you know, there are just way too many bytes to a kilobyte. Where's the decibyte (or perhaps ounce of bytes) when you need it?

Gimme the 350 gram burger" sounds lame to American ears, and frankly, in America, that's all we care about.

Congratulations?

And you still haven't. If you read my post, you'll see that I didn't actually say anything about metres or grams being too small.

Really? Certainly here in Sweden decimeters and hektograms( 100 g ) are used all the time. Hektograms are for example a common unit when buying things like food by weight.

But to be honest I've never seen it as a problem to talk about 400 grams or 170 cm, nor have I ever heard anybody complain about it before.