[AJames]

Tannehill, et.al.

Oh Dear oh dear, you known a culture is really in trouble when they have to use Borgisms to justify their own existence...

As for your parochial schisms for pronunciation, however, such adoption is even worst than the metric system. Needless to say that the "zee" for "z" is an Americanism we can all do without... As for the "confused spell-checking software" you can go past Microsoft's Word. Why is it that you cannot set the default language in word, without the program assuming and text pasted into it is automatically "English (US)" - also known as the greatest of the known oxymorons?

US Imperialism, you bet ya!!

But seriously folks... homogeneous (Note: NOT homogenous - having a common decent with the real English language - as the yanks often assume American English must be) adoption of standard systems like has real benefits in calculation in mathematics and the sciences. Clearly, the means of calculating something is not in the units of measures but in the meaning of the results. For example, of the top of you head, how many feet are in say one furlong? Firstly you have to known the conversion of feet and furlongs, then after the calculation, you have to imagine how long 'x' amount of really is. If I say the distance was one furlong, say a distance a horse has to run in a horse race (but not in new South Wales at the moment), how long is this? Let's see how quickly you can come up with a result!
(Not being very cruel person, you might like to look at; http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001729.html )

Now even knowing the conversion factors this is a complete nightmare.

If I say the horse has 200 metres to run - well you and most of the inhabitants of the Earth know how far this is - except for the yanks and a few Poms....

Even the Yanks have different imperial measures than the Brits... For example the unit for "Pint". There are so-called dry pints and imperial pints, where 1 dry pint = 0.96893 imperial pints... So if you buy a pint beer in the UK you would be short changed by 3.2% for the same beer in the US.

OK, so I might be US bashing, but listen to this imperial insanity...

"The bushel as it is used by farmers in the U.S. is actually a measure of mass which varies for different commodities. Canada uses the same bushel masses for most commodities, but not for oats.
There is a variety of "barrels" established by law or usage. For example, federal taxes on fermented liquors are based on a barrel of 31 gallons; many state laws fix the "barrel for liquids" at 31 1/2 gallons; one state fixes a 36-gallon barrel for cistern measurement; federal law recognizes a 40-gallon barrel for "proof spirits"; by custom, 42 gallons compose a barrel of crude oil or petroleum products for statistical purposes, and this equivalent is recognized "for liquids" by four states." Nuts!

Even more clearly obvious is the advantage of things based on the units of base ten. The Yanks, of course, considered as the financial capital/ists of the World (though with their problems at the moment, the US dollar is being sold of by the hundreds of billions per day as the $A strides to 90 cents - goody cheaper 'scopes and accessories - with the rest of the world preferring not to "working for the Yankee dollar") have been using base ten money for more than a century with no problems - but in dumping of their antiquated imperial system they just refuse to budge.

As George Bernard Shaw said; "America and England are two nations divided by the same language."

Note: If he were alive today, he would have modified this considerably by also adding the problem of the metric system. Indeed it would sound like; "America and the World are divided by language and the measuring systems."

Also please explain to me why the symbol "#" in America is called a pound, when it is clearly a hash symbol? Isn't a pound a "£"?

And explain why simple 100 gsm paper (regardless of it paper size) is equal to about; 68 pound book (offset) paper ; 61 pound tag paper ; 36 pound cover paper ; 55 pound index paper ; 27 pound bond paper; 32 pound blotting paper ; 44 pound blanks paper ; 46 pound postcard paper ; 20 pound box boar... ?

Again, all I can say is; Nuts!

[May God Bless America! - because no one else believes this complete mess anymore - and he can probably save them!]