>From John David Galt: [begin quote] AFAIK this is not true. The only major difference between American and British Imperial measures is the units of volume (gallon, quart, etc.), and in those cases the units were the same in both places until Britain changed theirs in the 1820s. Therefore "British colonial" is accurate. [end quote]
Remember that the UK and U.S. used different sized inches until 1959. This would affect length, area, and some volume measurements. As I understand it, the "systems" were not well standardized until the 1820's, so when they were standardized the British chose one of many gallons in use (and probably redefined it) while the U.S. chose a different gallon to use. There may have been similar things happening in other units, particularly surveying (someone else may have more on this). By the way, I would add to Pat's list of how we can refer to non-metric systems, "colloquial units." This wouldn't be good for most formal writing, but I think it is pretty good for a lot of situations. Carl
