Other Names For U.S. Customary Units
The United States Code refers to these units as "traditional systems of weights and measures".
Other common ways of referring to these systems in the United States are: "Standard," "Customary," or, somewhat erroneously when considering volume/tonnage, "Imperial," or "English," which refers to the pre-1824 reform measures used throughout the British Empire.
Tools and fasteners with sizes measured in inches are sometimes called "SAE bolts" or "SAE wrenches" to differentiate them from their metric counterparts. The Society of Automotive Engineers originally developed fasteners standards using U.S. units for the US auto industry; the organization now uses metric units.
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Famous quotes containing the words names, customary and/or units:
“Consider the islands bearing the names of all the saints, bristling with forts like chestnut-burs, or Echinidæ, yet the police will not let a couple of Irishmen have a private sparring- match on one of them, as it is a government monopoly; all the great seaports are in a boxing attitude, and you must sail prudently between two tiers of stony knuckles before you come to feel the warmth of their breasts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Manners are of such great consequence to the novelist that any kind will do. Bad manners are better than no manners at all, and because we are losing our customary manners, we are probably overly conscious of them; this seems to be a condition that produces writers.”
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)
“Even in harmonious families there is this double life: the group life, which is the one we can observe in our neighbour’s household, and, underneath, another—secret and passionate and intense—which is the real life that stamps the faces and gives character to the voices of our friends. Always in his mind each member of these social units is escaping, running away, trying to break the net which circumstances and his own affections have woven about him.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)