Someone asked me how far San Francisco was from Christchurch…
I said, knowing my metric system from my US schooling, “about 11 megameters”
But they had no idea what that meant. Finally I rephrased it as “11 thousand kilometers” - which they understood, but is a mangling of the metric system. The beauty of the metric system is the new unit for each 3 orders of magnitude.
Kilo, mega, giga, tera, peta, exa, etc.
Saying “Eleven thousand kilometers” makes as much sense as saying “about a hundred thousand decameters”
SO, I’ve decided that the whole “hah hah, the USA doesnt use the metric system - so old fashioned” is a hollow criticism, since no one actually uses it correctly anyway, Here in NZ, not only do they use “thousand kilometers” but they also announce birth weight in lb/oz “she was 9lb 4oz!”, and tire pressure in PSI. It’s so random what is metric and what is imperial. I found the same situation in the UK.