I love it when you have to select language on a video game & it shows American flag

@BluntSm0ker It is actually. USA made it a condition of lending money in WW2.

@BluntSm0ker In the Revolutionary wars UK was fighting France too. France was powerful back then. Colonies weren't. Luftwaffe was far stronger than RAF in WW2 but got destroyed time and time again. 😉

@Gumba1000 The measurements that are used in the US are US Customary, not Imperial.

@BluntSm0ker Wow so many inaccuracies. USA didn't destroy the Luftwaffe over the UK. The RAF was fighting the Luftwaffe alone in 1940 over the UK. No crap American Air Force involved, no Russian air force involved. Just to reiterate, the British empire fought the Axis alone for a year, across the entire world. And wasn't losing either. It's true in 1941 Russia did a lot and expedited the end of the war. It is also true USA expedited the end of the war. However don't kid yourselves that USA was needed. The British empire had more resources and soldiers to call upon than the entire Axis combined. More than USA too. The British empire could have won alone, however it would have took many more years. The Royal Navy was blockading Germany and Europe. If the Axis did not get more help themselves, they'd have starved eventually.

@ninalanyon What's different? Is a pound in weight different? Is an inch different?

@Gumba1000 All volume measure is different.

@ninalanyon Are fluid ounces different?

@Gumba1000 slightly I think. US pint is 16 fl. oz. 8 pints to the gallon. US ton is 2000 pounds (short ton), UK is 20 cwt = 2240 pounds (long ton).

@ninalanyon The US and UK Gallon differs too. Theirs (Americans') is an old vintners' measure dating back to the 16 or 17C, before much standardising between trades let alone countries.

So their gallon = 1.2 UK Gall; and the pint is larger too, pro-rata.

It puzzled me until I twigged that the early colonists would have used vintners' and brewers' trade casks to carry food and water on their long voyages across the Atlantic Ocean, then to use the same casks once there.

As for refusing to acknowledge the proper name for the Imperial system, presumably for blatantly political reasons, it sort of makes sense from their point of view to continue the "American" myth. Apart from their historical tendency to adopt other countries' inventions but change the terminology to hide that, the USA is now the only country of any significance in the world, not using the SI Metric units for virtually all of its internal trade, cultural events, etc. Ironically, the USA is a fully paid-up member of the ISO that decreed the SI to be so, world-wide.

Her scientists, engineers and many trades people like motor-mechanics already have to use the SI measures though. Even DIY motorists servicing their own cars, if imported or built in the USA under licence, need metric spanners! So it will be only a matter of time before it becomes normal for everyday life in America.

They might even learn to spell the units' proper, i.e., French, names!

++++

Some years ago I chanced to see a souvenir programme from a recital celebrating the return to service from major overhaul, of Oslo Cathedral organ. I do not know when Norway went metric, but the instrument's specification in the Norwegian-language publication used all feet (fus) for the voices: "Diapason 8fus", "Tibia 4-2/3fus," etc.!

I should think so too. Can you really imagine Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D minor being so sonorous on "Diapason 2.4384"?

@ArishMell You've got the gallons backwards. The UK gallon is8 pints of 20 fl oz, the US gallon is 8 pints of 16 fl oz so one UK gallon is1.25 the volume of a US gallon. A rare occasion when the American item is smaller.

:-)

@BluntSm0ker You've just written your own fiction story there. It's obvious you don't know World War 2 history.

As regard to the Eastern Bloc countries, how did you expect Britain to get to those countries to help them directly? Was fighting on every continent not enough?

@ninalanyon Sorry - I mis-read my converter!

@BluntSm0ker You didn't answer the question, how were British forces going to get to those countries? Britain went to war with Germany over the invasion of Poland, therefore helped Poland.

@BluntSm0ker How was what you wrote a fiction? Because Britain was the head of an empire then. In total war, conscription raised armies of most of the male populations. The British empire had the largest population on the planet, therefore the largest army. You said of Hitler concentrated all his forces on Britain, he'd have won in a month. I just pointed out to you that the British empire fought Hitler and the Axis for an entire year alone. The Battle Of Britain was not a little shitty dog battle, it lasted months. The longest aerial battle in history, if you count it all at once. No other air force resisted the Luftwaffe as much. You said Britain had no thanks, we did.

You said Britain was too chicken to help it's allies, like I said, we fought a world war for them. What did USA do between 1939 and 1941? Oh yes, too chicken to join the war.