Quote Originally Posted by Throbert McGee View Post
Part of the reason is that, to me, metric units sound artificial and un-poetic, since English is full of proverbs and expressions relating to the Imperial units ("Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile"; or "He's a 98-pound weakling"), but we've yet to develop any similar expressions based on metric units. (Okay, I can think of one -- "Millimeter peter", referring to a man with an extremely small хрен!)
I agree, metric units are quite impersonal. The only "metric" saying I can think of right now is "метр в кепке", referring to someone very short.
Nothing prevents Russians from using expressions, mentioning traditional Russian measures, though: "пуд соли съесть", "косая сажень в плечах", "писать аршинными буквами", "бешеной собаке(корове) семь верст не крюк", "Мал золотник, да дорог", etc. You must have heard some of them.

PS. "Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile" - We'd say: "Give him a finger, and he'll bite the whole hand off".