: "The US system, for some reason which eludes me, is different from the original one so those saying they stick with the original system are in fact, not doing so."
The former British imperial system of measures lacked standardization, with weights and volumes varying all over the place. This was manipulated by the British controlled East India Company to its own financial advantage in matters of trade with its colonies, a factor that led to the American Revolution. Somewhat later, Great Britain adopted a revised and uniform imperial system of measures in 1826, hence the difference. For some reason, they continue to refer to measures of body weight in "stone", of which I need to lose at least one.
As you say, the British standardised in 1826, the Americans adopted their system in 1832 so the difference is not because the British standardised in 1826 but America adopting something different in 1832. If there was one standardised imperial system, why on earth did America "unstandardise" it?
As for a "stone" you guys don't understand that one because a ton was one of the things you changed. An original imperial ton was 2,240 lb, NOT 2,000 lb you use. Each ton was broken down into 20 units called a "hundred weight" of 112 lb. (Don't ask me why they called it that.) Each hundred weight was broken into quarters (28lb), called a quarter (appropriately) and each quarter was then halved to a unit of 14 lb called a stone. In other words, a stone is 1/160 of a ton. If that sounds complicated, you can see why the rest of the world has dumped the imperial system and followed France's lead in 1795 and gone metric - clearly as a result of the French Revolution in 1789. Who says history isn't important?
