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Post by osgood on May 31, 2022 7:22:11 GMT
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rayge
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Post by rayge on May 31, 2022 8:17:02 GMT
The article pretty much agrees with my experience in the UK (although I found it odd that the Fahrenheit scale was considered an imperial measurement, but let that pass). I was brought up with imperial measures: most elementary school notebooks had them printed on the back cover, I remember, and I learned them by rote when when I was bored with lessons in school. As I had a facility with mental arithmetic, when the metric system was introduced, I started doing conversions (both ways) in my head, and explaining it to older people - well, my mum . I still do the conversions automatically, even though I am perfectly comfortable now with both systems, except for capacity, where the oddly structured imperial system (four gills in a pint, two pints in a quart, four quarts in a gallon, two gallons in a peck, four pecks in a bushel, and so on up) doesn't really compute easily into litres. And of course the Americans have a different system again, based on fluid ounces.
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Post by blue on May 31, 2022 9:59:33 GMT
It's an odd hybrid in the UK, but generally I think that units which need to be continually measured and calculated take metric measurements, and imperial units are still used as a 'standard size'.
The number of people under the age of 60-ish who could actually calculate imperial units to a high standard is negligible, and changing it back is a non-story unless the target audience would be happy to sort out prescription pills to a hundred thousandth of an ounce.
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Post by Half Machine Lipschitz on May 31, 2022 10:44:03 GMT
Metric is used almost exclusively in Canada except in the building and construction trades which still use feet and fractions of inches as standard measurements.
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Post by osgood on May 31, 2022 10:55:44 GMT
Metric is used almost exclusively in Canada except in the building and construction trades which still use feet and fractions of inches as standard measurements. I suppose in Canada tools and mechanical pieces are also defined in inch fractions, right?
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Post by Half Machine Lipschitz on May 31, 2022 13:11:39 GMT
Metric is used almost exclusively in Canada except in the building and construction trades which still use feet and fractions of inches as standard measurements. I suppose in Canada tools and mechanical pieces are also defined in inch fractions, right? For the most part, yes, but some metric tools are also available - things like socket wrenches and allen keys, etc. but I think that's probably more universal than just in Canada.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2022 14:48:43 GMT
I find having to work out inches really rather difficult. It's quite a convoluted system.
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Post by cousinlou on May 31, 2022 17:12:16 GMT
I find having to work out inches really rather difficult. It's quite a convoluted system. It helps if you know the dimensions of your thumb
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Post by souphound on May 31, 2022 20:41:42 GMT
I find having to work out inches really rather difficult. It's quite a convoluted system. But strangely, I have a much clearer mental image of what, say, 24 inches or 2 feet is lengthwise than 60 centimeters. Getting a bit better, especially with kilometers vs. miles for longer distances (60 miles vs 100 kilometers). Both of those are getting easier with time though. I grew up with metric stuff being alien but that system started getting implemented when I was about 10, a bit of a long time ago. Imagine if our 12/24 clocks were now based on 10. Why wouldn't we have 10 or 20 hour days? Sure, each nominal slice would be longer but time still would evaporate at the same rate in the grand scheme of things. Kind of ludicrous when you think about it, but still feasible. I wouldn't like it one bit though.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2022 20:54:46 GMT
It's about making Britain great again !!
Juicy apples , pound a pound.
A regal crown on your pint glass
Pounds, shilling and pence!!!! Ah, sixpence in your pud or a thrupenny bit if you live on dead end street.
I'll give you five knicker for it.
Bring back NATIONAL SERVICE !!!!!!!
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Post by oh oooh on May 31, 2022 21:37:22 GMT
I find having to work out inches really rather difficult. It's quite a convoluted system. But strangely, I have a much clearer mental image of what, say, 24 inches or 2 feet is lengthwise than 60 centimeters. Getting a bit better, especially with kilometers vs. miles for longer distances (60 miles vs 100 kilometers). I always find it funny when you get older people saying things like 'it's about 100 yards up the road'. I have no idea what that means. Doesn't help if it's meters, either. It's those middling distances that are puzzling. I know what 3 mm looks like, and I know how long it takes to walk 3 miles - but 200 feet?
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Post by souphound on May 31, 2022 22:34:22 GMT
But strangely, I have a much clearer mental image of what, say, 24 inches or 2 feet is lengthwise than 60 centimeters. Getting a bit better, especially with kilometers vs. miles for longer distances (60 miles vs 100 kilometers). I always find it funny when you get older people saying things like 'it's about 100 yards up the road'. I have no idea what that means. Doesn't help if it's meters, either. It's those middling distances that are puzzling. I know what 3 mm looks like, and I know how long it takes to walk 3 miles - but 200 feet? Yards!! When I was a teen I was an avid golfer. EVERYTHING was in yards from tee to green and then feet and inches once on the green. Windspeed was in MPH. I know exactly what 200 yards feels and looks like. By no small accident, my stride was (and still is for that matter) pretty much exactly 1 yard long. That way, I always knew what distance I had gotten off the tee and therefore exactly how much was left to the center of the green. I played shit if and when we had to take a cart, which was not often around here in those days.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2022 22:46:34 GMT
I played a golf course once where they decided to mark everything in metres. Didn't have a clue what it meant. Kilometers mean nothing. A room thirty foot by thirty foot is imaginable but thirty sq metres of space is an alien concept.
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Post by oh oooh on May 31, 2022 22:53:42 GMT
You come across that square meters thing a LOT when you're looking at flats in Europe. 28 m2 is too small, 40 m2 is OK, 56 m2 is nice and big.
Maybe it's the same in the UK, but I can't say I've ever come across it.
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Post by souphound on Jun 1, 2022 1:05:14 GMT
I have a lot of problems with area in general as soon as we're talking larger than like 10 sq. ft. Even worse with square meter area. Like, 500 sq. yds. or 500 sq. m. both sound a lot larger than they actually are, in my mind anyway. And I'm very good in general with numbers, large or small.
Here's one measure that I long ago gave up on trying to picture it sizewise in my mind; I give you the lightyear. Maybe it's because it's neither imperial nor metric though!
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