The beauty of the old system was that it mapped onto the everyday experience of farmers. I am sure hundredweights and furlongs and so forth all made lots of sen

The beauty of the old system was that it mapped onto the everyday experience of farmers. I am sure hundredweights and furlongs and so forth all made lots of sense. But units have to cross cultures and times — the only intuitive units left to boast about are the foot and the yard, which are 30cm and roughly a meter. Indeed, we are probably taller now than when the yard was defined to the extent that the meter is probably closer to an intuitive yard than the yard is. Incidentally, the official definition of an inch is 2.54cm. Now that's intuitive.