this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2026
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We occasionally get engineering diagrams from clients in the US and they're always going on about screws that are 2/3 of an inch long. It's not just that you're not using metric you're using a weird fraction and not a decimal.
It's super confusing when you get into high precision stuff because then they start going on about 128th of an inch. Just tell me how big you want it, stop telling me what fraction of a different measurement it is. Surely there is something below inch that you could use. I still wouldn't know what you were talking about, but at least it would look less stupid when you wrote it down.
A thou is a milliinch
Centiinch? Millifoot?
Isn't the UK just as bad? You have a zoo of units over there. Stone, miles, pints, etc.
The US is the only country that uses non-metric units when doing anything industrial though. I might buy a pint of milk but I'm not going to measure in anything but metres and centimetres.
This is fair. I see no reason to drop feet and inches for day to day use but I'd consider it scandalous if I saw an astronomer using anything but a meter
Every company ive ever worked for has been metric. All American companies. But i do machines and instruments.
I deal with standard / uscs units because suppliers still do