| > ...mixed numbers are decidedly inferior to decimals. They're not harder, strictly speaking, but are more tedious, and this additional tedium introduces steps that people can make mistakes in. A counterpoint to this is the fact that there are close to a million employed carpenter tradesmen in the US whose average level of education is a high school diploma[1], and yet their trade operates almost exclusively on fractional arithmetic, most of which occurs mentally on the jobsite. The point being that tedium is a relative measure of training and experience, and it goes without saying that those trained in only decimal form are liable to struggle with unfamiliar systems. And if you think that's bad, try purchasing lumber from any lumber yard in Canada or the US; the trade's board-foot system[2] will really tickle your metric attachment. > it is a waste of time and effort to use non-SI units and convert back and forth. It seems the story is more like it's a waste of time to those who find value in what Americans have to say but are unaccustomed and insistently resistant to performing conversions. I don't disagree that there's certainly value in having a globally common measurement framework, and indeed an American who conveys imperial units in a European setting is liable to be chastised. But old habits die hard and last time I checked, we're not having this discussion on a .eu gTLD. Now try imagining how the typical American feels when engaging with the rest of the world: SI units, (,) and (.) symbols reversed, left-lane driving, etc. We tend to just adapt. [1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/carpente... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_foot |