I'm afraid we've been bamboozled
I'm afraid we've been bamboozled
213 comments
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May I present to you, how to measure like a Brit
It's great fun especially when you're trying to work out how fuel efficient your car has been when your tank and fuel pump is in litres and the fuel efficiency is in miles per gallon.
Oh and you'll have a jolly time following a recipe from more than 20 years ago trying to remember what the hell "Gas Mark 4" is in centigrade for fan or convection ovens.
Oh and my personal favourite for the industry I'm in: when designing a PCB your component sizes will use imperial codes, your wire diameters will be in AWG, your track widths and PCB dimensions will be in millimetres, but your copper thicknesses will be in ounces despite the final weight for the assembly will be in grams.
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Bear in mind that the gallon we use is different from the US gallon, too:
- a UK gallon is eight (imperial) pints of 20 fluid ounces, so 4.54 litres
- a US gallon is 231 cubic inches, so 3.79 litres
The reason that I thought American car fuel economy was so terrible as a child is partly because UK mpg is +20% on US mpg for the same car on the same fuel. But also, because American car fuel economy is so terrible.
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It's weirder when you look at Canada vs USA. Mileage here is usually written L/100km, but back in the day the cars were exactly the same but the mileage in Canada was better because the the US gallon is only ~83% the size of a proper gallon.
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Canada has a similar chart, with some fun modifications. For example, distance could be feet/inches, millimeters/meters/kilometers, or minutes/hours, depending on what you are measuring.
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As an Indigenous Canadian ... when someone asks me where something, someone, some town, some location, the sun or a celestial object is located ... I turn my head and point with my lips.
And my distance measurements are usually answered first by asking 'why?' .... and if they give an acceptable response, I'll tell them the distance is either ... 'not far' ... 'far' ... or 'very far'
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Thank you for posting this. So sick and tired of people saying that GB switched to Metric.
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This! That stupid map that just shows the US and Burma always annoys me. The US customary system includes Metric units. Canada and England still use Imperial/Customary. And "Metric" Is actually like 5 different systems with similar features like ANSI/ISO, KMS/CGS, and the three different pressure measurements.
Natural units >>> Metric I want an alternative to Metric that uses base 12 units instead.
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It's because we're stuck with a bunch of twats who can't let go of the past. They'll stick with Imperial measurements, mostly because the word looks like "Imperialist" and that's the side they want to be on. Jacob Rees-Mogg is a wrought-iron dildo.
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The only part I disagree with is stone/pounds for people's weight. Although we use stone, I've never heard someone use pounds... Maybe if you're in Weight Watchers or something, but otherwise it'd be rounded to the nearest half a stone (e.g. 9 and a half stone)
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Since volume is equivalent to metres cubed and distance is equivalent to metres (both multiplied by some conversion coefficient), I think fuel efficiency should be measured in metres squared, because why not.
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This is a correct unit for it. Why? Think of it like a tube where as you move along it you use up the fuel. Over a set distance you would use more in a lower efficiency vehicle. Since the length of that pipe is the same, then the change would be the area of the ends of the pipe. Thus fuel efficiency is an area, smaller is better.
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But square inches, because come on.
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A similar chart could be made for the US, proving that it does use metric: soda and wine bottles, medicine doses, eye-glasses measurements (in fact most medical things).
I think that both systems are used in schools now.
But then I see cooking instructions for a "cup of chicken strips" and a recipe having 1/4 cup of butter, and I wonder why anyone thought that volume was a good idea there.
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Short distances should be meters, feet, inches, millimetres.
None of that fractions of an inch bollocks.
And milk is often actually in litres and half litres, we just assume it's in pints. Clever little bit of shrinkflation.
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fractions of an inch bollocks
my condolences
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Short distances should be meters, feet, inches, millimetres.
American machinists go a different way altogether: thousandths of an inch. So no binary fractions, but still imperial-ish. :/
And milk is often actually in litres and half litres, we just assume it’s in pints.
That one makes sense.
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There's also a difference between imperial miles and nautical miles, though I'm not sure if British long distance ships use nautical miles or not.
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Aviation uses nautical miles across the western world.
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Yes. Calculating how much a car journey is going to cost is such a chore. Trip in miles ÷ mpg × 4.5 × £/litre of fuel = cost.
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I just assume I'll do 45.45 MPG, then I'm pleasantly surprised when the fuel bill is lower than expected.
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these MFs convey weight in whatever the fuck "stone" is. don't let them shame you for not using liters
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They'll also list height in meters and centimeters, but list driving distance in miles.
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Rough people height generally feet (“a 5ft lass”, “he’s gotta be 7ft!”), actual height in m or cm. Except above a certain height and then well it’s a 15ft drop or a 3000ft munro
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They're metres and centimetres, but your point is still moot due to our prescribed 3000ft Munros
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Stone is only real used for body weights now, and mostly be older people. I see metric weights used a lot more in medicine and by younger folk now.
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Invents the word Soccer, calls americans dumb for using it.
(TBF it's dumb, especially since you call hand egg football, sry americans)
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apparently its short for association football
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The term football used to apply to any ball sport played on foot (as apposed to on horseback). The idea that it could only belong to soccer is actually quite arrogant.
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Yep! It was to distinguish Association Football ("Soccer") from Rugby Union Football ("Rugger").
I suppose we should use "Gridder" for North American "Gridiron Football".
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Third World Ball Chace.
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It’s always worth bringing this out again at times like these, while the US trots out the same old excuses for their lack of progress that every other country that used to have old measurements has made.
“It’s fine”.
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The US system month/day/year is pretty bad, but honestly, so is day/month/year. Pretty much everything else is written from largest to smallest unit. Regular numbers: 123, here 1 is the 100s, 2 is the 10s and 3 is the 1s. In money, when a currency also have smaller units, you always say the largest first. "3 dollars, 50 cents." A digital clock displays the numbers ordered from largest to smallest - 10:45:31. So why are people so proud of the european date format? Writing out a full timestamp would switch from increasing to decreasing units.
ISO-8601 is the only sensible choice.
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I've seen people (ie USers) say that imperial makes more sense because it's easily divisible by 2, 3, 4 and 6 so it's more intuitive. Yet I've never seen any of these people campaign to ditch their base 100 currency for a more "intuitive" £ s d style system. You already use decimal currency and find it easier than a system where 240¢ makes $1.
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I agree with you 240%!
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Oh, yeah, the pounds, shillings and pence system was just epic. One pound (money, not weight) is 20 shillings (because why not), and one shilling is 12 pence (just for maximum confusion). In order to use measurements or money, you need to memorize a bunch of arbitrary conversion factors, which was obviously loved by everyone.
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For the Time units - in terms of organizing by a list of numbers, I find year, month, day the best because it organizes itself.
- 20241210 today
- 20241211 tomorrow
- 20241217 a week from now
If these were folders in a computer, they'd be in numerical order automatically.
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It's the international standard for a reason
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How about addresses on mail going from most general to most specific?
United States Missouri, Kansas City 55555, N Lincoln Ave 1546, Apt 456 Joe Sturgeon
I was typing that as a joke because it is the opposite of the system in the US, but aren't there places that follow this method?
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I'm in agreement with everything except temperature. I'm not saying that Celsius is bad, but I do think that using the phase changes of water as the sole point of comparison is a bad argument.
For most people, the interaction with temperature is through the weather, and I don't think Celsius is inherently better for that. I like that in Fahrenheit 0 is a cold winter's day, and 100 is a hot summer's day. I find that more relevant in day-to-day life than the phase changes of water. The big argument I see for preferring Celsius is that everybody else is doing it, so we may as well jump in.
However, in regards to the other systems of measurement, metric is best. The imperial system was nice when manufacturing measuring tools was difficult, so using easily divisible numbers allowed for easier creation of accurate measuring devices. But it has been quite some time since that was a reasonable argument (and that's only really relevant for some of the units anyway).
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I do think that using the phase changes of water as the sole point of comparison is a bad argument.
Why? Water is extremely important to life and very abundant. The phases changes of water are something that you are confronted with in every day life, all the time.
For most people, the interaction with temperature is through the weather, and I don't think Celsius is inherently better for that.
I do, because the temperature being above or below freezing is a very important boundary. Freezing temperatures means slippery roads, frost on windows, car locks freezing shut, etc. A lot of our interaction with the world outside is affected by the temperature being below or above 0ºC. By comparison, 0ºF is completely arbitrary, nothing changes when you cross that boundary.
I like that in Fahrenheit 0 is a cold winter's day, and 100 is a hot summer's day.
10ºF is also a cold day, so is 20ºF and 30ºF. Just like 90ºF is also a hot summers day.
I find that more relevant in day-to-day life than the phase changes of water.
None of those seem relevant to me. I don’t need a round number to know that 37ºC is a hot day. There is no significance to 100ºF. 99ºF is also a hot day and so is 101ºF. Nothing interesting happens when you cross the 100ºF threshold.
When you cross the 0ºC or 100ºC, potentially dangerous things start to happen of which you need to be aware.
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Basing a unit of measure on a purely subjective and variable thing like "it feels hot/cold" is a terrible idea. The metric system specifically tries to avoid that.
Plus, whether it feels hot/cold is going to be equally easy in metric and imperial, since nobody's personal preference falls in the same place. At least with metric, there's an additional point of reference for worrying about ice.
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Basing a unit of measure on a purely subjective and variable thing like "it feels hot/cold" is a terrible idea. The metric system specifically tries to avoid that.
Plus, whether it feels hot/cold is going to be equally easy in metric and imperial, since nobody's personal preference falls in the same place. At least with metric, there's an additional point of reference for worrying about ice.
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Temperature is so much more than weather
Also it's very relative. For me. 0 celsius is a cold winter day. Which is about 17f
100f is also a degree that never occurs here.
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I like that in Fahrenheit 0 is a cold winter's day, and 100 is a hot summer's day.
Fahrenheit fans always say stuff like this, but it just doesn't work. 100 isn't too bad in that respect, but 0 is just insane. If you want it to be equivalent, 0 °F would be 0 °C. Because there's no way that -18 °C is as cold as 38 °C is hot.
Besides that, knowing about things like snow or ice outside, whether your fridge is likely to cause some stuff to frost over, etc., or whether the thing you're cooking has reached boiling point are all just as valid things for your day-to-day experience.
But besides all that, SI is a package deal. You use Fahrenheit and now you've got to redefine all the other units that are derived from the Kelvin, because now you're suddenly using Rankine.
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Aren't there places in Europe that do Street then Address # then City (I have to do this for OSMAnd)? That's just as cursed as Month Day Year
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The UK sorta tried switching to metric but didn't do it completely and now has a weird system where the system you use depends on the situation I hate it
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I end up doing a lot of lazy maths, and remembering rough numbers.
45MPG? That's about 10 miles per litre.
8 inches? Eh, 20cm.Anything remotely technical, I convert everything to metric (and actually take the time do accurately).
Having the inch-fractions to mm table on the back of a ruler is very useful when using old drill bits and spanners. -
The US does it too, the other way around. They use fractions for a lot of things (3/8", half a foot, etc.) and then switch in decimals (like "2.5 inches") when they think you're not looking. Except for bullets for some reason which are in mm.
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You'll love the way we do tyres then. Two of the dimensions are metric and the third is imperial.
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Everything the UK has done throughout history was just for the banter. We're not a serious people.
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True dat. You wouldn't believe the crazy, flavourful food we eat behind closed doors. We save the bland beige-on-toast for when foreigners are around.
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Build an entire empire just to troll your own offshoots.
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As an American, I use the metric system whenever possible. As of more recently, it's usually taught in schools, as well as used ubiquitously in science. I wouldn't be surprised if the US switches to primarily using the metric system in the next few decades.
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Nah, we have already reached the point of being a mix depending on tradition. We have been bottling soda in 20oz bottles and 2 liter bottles for decades and changing all the speed limit signs would cost too much to gain any traction. Just a confusing mix of whatever!
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Technically US customary units were re-defined as specific values of their equivalent metric units (for instance, 1 inch === 25.4 mm), so you are using the metric system regardless, but with weird conversion factors.
The majority of U.S. customary units were redefined in terms of the meter and kilogram with the Mendenhall Order of 1893 and, in practice, for many years before. These definitions were refined by the international yard and pound agreement of 1959.
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I was taught it in rural Ohio in the '80s, but it was never used outside of science in any meaningful way. Now live in metric land where things make so much more sense.
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Maybe a decade of decades. But it'll eventually get there.
There's too much infrastructure based on even units in imperial that would "turn into" a partial digit if forced to stay the same.
Example. 1/2"wrench would be the same as a 12.7mm wrench. And a 1/2-13 bolt would be a M12.7x1.9532 bolt.
That stupid conversion makes no sense, so we just use both. Eventually as we replace imperial infrastructure with metric, we'll use more and more metric, and less imperial. Until eventually it's all metric. Though a common structural lumber will likely still be called a "2 by 4" even though it's measurements would theoretically be 35mm X 85mm. And nobody will remember why.
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There will be holdouts. In my part of Canada all the rural roads are laid out in a 1 mile x 2 mile grid. Nobody every says a farm is 3.2km away. It's 2 miles. Even changing all the road signs is cheaper than moving roads to make more sense in the metric system.
Otherwise for long-ish distances we're completely metric.
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Someone: Ugh, the recipe is in grams, and I need it in ounces.
Me: Just divide by 28
Them: How'd you know that?
Me: ...👀
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That’s fine, it’s the insistence that “cups” is a measurement that pisses me off.
Especially when you have oz, fl oz and cups in one recipe. Sort it the fuck out and just use grams.
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Cups can be a nightmare in the UK as it's usually US cups, but sometimes it's metric cups (which are just 250ml, so an entirely redundant measurement in the first place), and recipes rarely say which, and if you buy measuring cups, they'll rarely say which type they are, but more commonly be metric ones, despite those being the least likely that a recipe would use.
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For decades, Britain has had campaigners against metric (or the “Napoleonic system” as some of them call it), who were generally on the populist right. There was a grocer who refused to display prices in metric measurements and, when he was fined, refused to pay and was sent to gaol; the tabloids called him the “Metric Martyr”, and lionised him as a hero alongside those who vandalise speed cameras. One of the promises of the Brexit campaign was to abolish the metric system and go back to imperial measures, though after they won, they realised that the imperial measurements have been legally defined in reference to SI units for decades, and establishing a new basis for measurement would be far too expensive and disruptive to do just to placate a bunch of pub bores and opinionated van drivers, so they dropped it.
So Britain has a mixed system (beer and milk are measured in pints, and road distances/speeds in miles, but most other things are metric), only the fluid ounce, which is 1/20 of a pint, is legally defined as 28.4ml or so. Even worse, road distances given in yards (each being around 0.9 of a metre) are actually in metres, going on the assumption that the average person can’t tell the difference. Of course, they can’t call them metres, as there’d be irate letters to The Times and questions in Parliament.
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There were some polls asking why people voted for Brexit. Not only where there respondents wanting imperial measurements, there was even a small but significant group that wanted the return of pre-decimal currency, which was abolished in 1971.
For those not familiar with the UK’s old currency, it used to be 12 pence in a shilling, and 20 shillings in a pound, and with a variety of coins representing odd combinations of those.
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When Canada abolished the penny I was advocating for renaming our currency the pound, just so we could divide it up into 20 shillings. Each shilling would of course still be 5¢.
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Oh Jesus. Imagine what Nigel Farage would say if he overheard me giving the measurements of my curtains in centimeters. He'd have me catapulted to Rwanda.
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Gaol is jail, for the rest of us.
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Wait, the yard distances were metres all along!? I could have used the time spent learning my 0.9 times tables for better things!
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imperial measurements have been legally defined in reference to SI units for decades
This is the important bit.
Effectively, we are metric, but display things using the old units sometimes.
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The UK can pretend all they want, but they ain't part of the metric club.
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The US was a founding member of the Metre Convention, find a new slant
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We were almost the first country to switch. Now we're probably going to be last
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Nothing you've said disagrees with the meme.
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This whole operation was your idea!
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Screw both. If you don't measure temperature in Kelvin don't talk to me.
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No we are a mixed people thank you very much
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The US wanted to rid itself of as much English influence as possible, she even changed the spelling. Odd that she held on to Imperial.
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Imperial is slightly different. We use US customary measures.
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This is one of my favorite facts.
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*French influence. Most of the prominent differences between American and British English (such as -er/-re and -or/-our) occurred because the British preserved (or changed spellings to add) French influence.
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You forgot "and we continue to use Imperial and archaic things like 'stone' " too.
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Yeah but we don't mention that when we're making fun of Americans.
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We bamboozled ourselves. The Brits woke up to the fact the metric system was better and changed. Sure they still have their idiots who like the old system there but they ignore them. Whereas here we let that small minority rule. That is why we are using a broken old system and why we are the only country that is. Because we let the stupid rule in order to beat some imagined enemy.
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We are supposed to use metric here in my country, but because of American influence, we use imperial.
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What flag is that?
It looks similar to an inverted Union flag but one of the red stripes is in the wrong place.
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I loved Torque Test Channel's take on the whole metric thing... https://youtu.be/2QUum9NymZY?si=8w7PCNReVX1-3tMn
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Yeah, we got bigger problems.
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Um actually the US doesn't and never has used the Imperial System
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We use freedom units, where everything is measured in cheeseburgers.
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The US certainly did use it.
Today though, it's known as American Customary Units, which are similar to Imperial, but there are differences.
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American customary units and imperial units both come from English units, so the US used various inconsistent English and other units in its early days. But the US never used "Imperial" units, which were not codified and put into effect in the British Empire until almost 50 years after the US had gained independence.
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ACKTUALLY...
But yes, it does bother the pedant in me to see everyone calling it "Imperial system" when it technically isn't
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Technichally
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213 comments