I'm okay with using abnormal units. Why? We can't switch to metric. We're doing it for the good of the English language, dammit!

Sure, metric is easier, more uniform, and makes ridiculously more practical sense, and our scientists and doctors use it, so we have it where in counts. The average American has at least a limited knowledge of metric, and it doesn't take much to learn it as a second system. I learned metric in US public school in the late 90's. No big deal.

But if we forsake the US Customary System, what happens to our songs and poems and spoken word? "Inch by inch, row by row," or "I would walk 500 miles," or Shakespeare's "a pound of flesh?" Try converting just these few examples to metric and all the nuance and feeling are lost. Aesthetically, metric is boring. Nobody wants to rhyme I metric.

But feet, yards, miles, pounds, ounces, cups, pints, quarts, gallons... each has its own identity, its own soul and rhythm and rhyme. They're expressive, not coldly uniform newspeak like the kilo/centi/milli's. And if we give up the USCS for metric (for what? Slightly less confusion on the Internet?), what happens in three generations when our poets and singers and writers no longer have any intuitive connection with these great words? As a global superpower, we're championing to keep this antiquated but extraordinarily expressive system of measures alive and relevant, at the expense of our own sanity (how many cups in a gallon again?), but for the sake of the world's culture and art.

Thankfully, there's about as much chance of us converting in our lifetimes as there is removing the stripes from our flag. And now that I've had my say, I'm off to buy a 2-liter of cola and a few grams of pot.