Mungo Bulge wrote:

Now I know this off-hand comment was made in good humour, so I make my
comment in the same atmosphere of good humour and without malice of
intent. It always amuses me when our good neighbours to the south
(yes, I too live in the land of metric) make an off hand comment about
the metric system, especially if they imply the "States" has no use
for it. The reason I find it amusing is that they will frequently
malign us for having recently (40 years) accepted the metric system
of measure.

Little known US history fact:

Standard of Length: -- In 1866, the United States, by act of Congress,
passed a law making the meter, the only measure of length that has
been legalized by the United States Government.

Keeping this in the metalworking topic- I am a retired physicist, and
did all my professional work in metric (most of it anyway). So I am
bilinqual- metric or Imperial.

However, I can pick up a drill and size it pretty easily in imperial
sizes. Same for wrenches. Not able to do that as well in metric. In
some ways it is sad that we are not bilinqual in units, but I must admit
lifelong experience in sizing things makes it hard to switch completely
to metric.

Now, if I ever get to the point where I can identify sheet metal by
guage just by estimation :-) On the other hand, with the ridiculously
cheap prices on dial and even digital calipers these days, I don't
really need to estimate or guess.

I guess maybe fractional sizes have sort of a binary component when we
are under an inch. Maybe the human brain likes binary better than
digital :-)