Measurement systems affect culture but they are not culture in and of themselves. Countries have changed systems, but their cultures clearly have not. In fact I

Measurement systems affect culture but they are not culture in and of themselves. Countries have changed systems, but their cultures clearly have not. In fact I think the fact that many countries have switched demonstrates that it's not something cultural, rather one of practicality. There's a strong school of thought in the US that the government creating standards is "interferring" etc, that's possibly a reason why they haven't changed. Your argument reads that there's no need for change because it's cultural and easier just to keep things the way are. However if things were really like that, languages would have never evolved. People change, we get new ideas, and move on. In every language you'll have phrases that relate to things from a long time ago, that doesn't mean they have a right to stay. The US has kept to the imperial system, which is your decision, but it's just few other people can understand your steadfastness. In the UK we have phrases similar to what you mentioned regarding basketball rules, etc. They've stayed and quite rightly; also in russian and french we still have some of these words. But our general attitude to measurement systems has changed, for practical reasons, and quite rightly too.