Of course, the title should be 'Old english units of measure'. England started officially becoming metric in 1965 (with a few exceptions like road signs and pints of beer).
Confusingly, the US system commonly referred as "English units" differs from the traditional English Imperial unit used before metrication in several key ways - the most notable difference being the US units of liquid volume being notably smaller than their Imperial counterparts.
It's missing so much, like the know used to be defined at 42 fathoms per 30 seconds, giving 5040 ft per hour, which was close to the original definition of the mile. Then when the nautical mile was more useful it became 47'3" in 28 seconds, which equates to 6075 ft/hr, which is pretty close to the idea of 1 NM/hr.
There's more, but it's pretty good. A fun read.
Challenge question, a snail's pace is a furlong/fortnight. How fast is that in SI units?
That works out to 0.00198412698 miles per gallon. I hope Homer left out a couple of zeros--but then again, given the car he built, my hope is likely misplaced.
