5 ms·

It should be obvious why the US stays on the imperial system. There is an opportunity cost to switch that is greater than the current ongoing cost of translatio

by zanny 9y ago

It should be obvious why the US stays on the imperial system. There is an opportunity cost to switch that is greater than the current ongoing cost of translation. Thus, someone has to bite the bullet and assume losses to push metric. Throughout the world, the organization that put the foot down and ate the bill has almost always been the government - but the US government operates on short term results. The politician that inconveniences the public today with a metric conversion doesn't have his seat tomorrow, and his replacement immediately halts proceedings. Language isn't close to a solved problem. Hopefully the next hundred years can finally see the reconstruction of the Tower of Babel for a generation of the world soon to come. But there also needs to be a legitimate reason for us to want to unify language. If we operate independently of one another and let businesses control any interactions by proxy of money, we will stay separate.

esolyt 9y ago
The problem is public opinion. Americans either don't care or think imperial is superior. It doesn't have to be a federal law. Change can start gradually with private companies. Pokemon Go, for instance, shows only kilometers and doesn't offer imperial units as an option. All water bottles in the US have both mililiters and fluid ounces on their label.
- cr0sh 9y ago
  From what I understand, most construction and other raw materials are all measured in metric units, then converted to imperial at final sale if needed. For instance, a 4 x 8 foot sheet of plywood down at Home Depot isn't really 4 x 8 feet; it actually has an imperial measurement of 47.938 x 95.938 inches, which is approximately 1217 x 2437 mm - the standard metric size is 1220 x 2440 mm: http://cwc.ca/wood-products/panel-products/plywood/sizes/ http://cwc.ca/wood-products/panel-products/plywood/sizes/ Thicknesses (as noted in the table too) have similar "whole" metric numbers. You see this also on some (not all) general materials sold to the American consumer public - the actual material is metric sized, but marketed with imperial measurements. I think this is done both for cultural reasons, as well as just "momentum" and that the public is used to it. But the reality is (almost) everything is now metric, the public just isn't fully aware of it yet.
  - Terretta 9y ago
    This doesn’t pass commen sense for me. Plywood measured in metric, converted to imperial if needed? I can imagine someone coming up with 4 feet by 8 feet as a standard size for building material. I don’t see them coming up with 1220mm x 2440mm and thinking “nailed it, perfect size for calculating how many of these to make a wall!” Also, since the gap between plywood takes space, plywood (and drywall) is a bit less than stated size to give you breathing room to put 4x8s repeating every 4 and 8 feet. That said I don’t know why a nominal 2×4 is actually 1½ × 3½. Used to be finishing work shaved it down, now they just make ‘em that way to be ornery.
    - abakker 9y ago
      The sizing is also dependent on intent. Floor underlayment is not the exact same size as furniture grade plywood. And MDF is actually 49"x97" to give you some extra room if you are laminating a veneer on it. It is true that various plywoods come in metric thickness though. Especially those made in China.
- johncolanduoni 9y ago
  > All water bottles in the US have both mililiters and fluid ounces on their label. That's actually required by federal law. A lot of commercial regulations in the US require metric measurements in addition to imperial.
  - jaggederest 9y ago
    Legacy of the 1970s-1980s attempt to move the US onto the metric standard. Don't tell people who are annoyed by metric, but all the 'imperial' units we use now are 100% based on metric units. Our metrology has been metric since that time, all the day-to-day usage is derived units. Which is why an inch is exactly 2.54cm instead of some rounded fraction.
hugi 9y ago
As the U.S. loses political importance and mindshare, sites will stop using U.S. units. Conversion to metric will eventually happen. As for language, I'm kind of split. On one hand language is a tool for communication that becomes more efficient the more standardized it is. On the other hand, language is closely related to art and culture. I'm Icelandic (and a poet at heart) and I love my language deeply. I can succintly say things in Icelandic that can't esaily be expressed in English. And that probably applies to every language. So I'm torn. I don't want to lose my language. But I also want a more integrated world.
- sneak 9y ago
  You won't lose your language; your grandkids will just not bother to learn it.
  - hugi 9y ago
    I have three kids and I seriously doubt their kids won't speak the language of their parents (assuming they'll live in Iceland). The transition happens much slower, although I've been watching it accelerate over the past couple of decades. English is encroaching on the language. We speak Icelandic, but there are small grammatical changes happening, making the language more English - and at the same time, we're losing Icelandic vocabulary. My prediction is that my grandkids (that's probably at least 13-15 years in the future (hopefully)) will speak Icelandic very similar to what I do, it'll just be a liiiittle different. But these small changes will certainly accumulate and the pace of change will probably accelerate with more communication and integration. So who knows what will happen in the next 50-100 years.
    - isostatic 9y ago
      Welsh was pretty much wiped out as the far more practical use of English press over the centuries. About 50 years ago there was a political movement to re-introduce it, laws were past to ensure that government communicated in Welsh on request , roadsigns were bilingual, and Welsh was taught in schools (which is probably just as useful as French being taught in schools). Language is the major barrier of freedom, I can theoretically get a job and move to Dublin, London, Berlin, Rome, Cadiz, Porto, Budapest, Taliin or Athens. In reality the language prevents it in most cases. In 100 years time we could either live in a fuedal society where you can live/work in a small area owned by a local baron who reports to an international mega corporation, with international style communications in a language nobody knows - just like 14th century England and Latin, or we could have a free borderless world where there is fictionless movement and communication. I hope technology will enable the latter before the former entrenchs again.
sweettea 9y ago
Imperial units are better, and I expect the world will convert to them in the next century. They're sane and easily divisible into eighths and more with a single significant digit of the next smaller unit, while going from 1 kilo to 125 grams is a awkward increase in digits. They're human scale: a pound is generally about a big handful, while a gram is hardly an easily estimated quantity for humans and a kilogram is awkwardly big to hold in one's hand. A cup and a pint are useful amounts of water to drink, while a liter is a bit more than a useful quantity to measure such things by. An inch is a knuckle on my finger, and a foot is the length of my forearm, while a meter is difficult to measure without a reference and a centimeter is a useful unit but I don't have an inbuilt measuring unit that long. I could go on, but I think this is a sufficient set of examples: metric is difficult to use for casual estimation (which is, after all, what one does most of the time, imperial is designed to be on a human scale and is better for everyday use and estimation. Edit: Not sarcasm. I work with imperial daily farming, and worked with metric doing chemistry in college.
- hugi 9y ago
  Before I upvote—this is sarcasm, right?
  - wbl 9y ago
    "A half liter is too small and a liter too much"- Why the UK still uses the pint in bars.
    - NickNameNick 9y ago
      Do they really use pints? Most new 'pint' glasses I see are marked 56 Centi-litres.
      - goodcanadian 9y ago
        One imperial pint is 56.8 cl, so that is about a pint. It looks like they are shortchanging you 8ml.
myroon5 9y ago
Esperanto is probably the most successful attempt at language standardization so far. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto
- pmarreck 9y ago
  And how well is that doing, over the course of its entire existence? As well as the Dvorak keyboard layout, I imagine
  - zanny 9y ago
    Dvorak is something anyone can use on their own any time. I imagine it is much more successful than Esperanto, because the only point of language is communication. It is the Facebook problem - you need a large network of participants to make a language work, or the language fails its purpose. Also, Esperanto is ugly as fuck. It has I believe 4 accented letters, and I have no idea why anyone would think when divising a new language that accents or umlauts are good ideas (unless all the letters supported them and had consistent meaning). Otherwise, just use new characters.
kwhitefoot 9y ago
The US does not use the imperial system, it uses US Customary.

by zanny 9y ago

esolyt 9y ago

The problem is public opinion. Americans either don't care or think imperial is superior. It doesn't have to be a federal law. Change can start gradually with private companies. Pokemon Go, for instance, shows only kilometers and doesn't offer imperial units as an option. All water bottles in the US have both mililiters and fluid ounces on their label.

cr0sh 9y ago
From what I understand, most construction and other raw materials are all measured in metric units, then converted to imperial at final sale if needed. For instance, a 4 x 8 foot sheet of plywood down at Home Depot isn't really 4 x 8 feet; it actually has an imperial measurement of 47.938 x 95.938 inches, which is approximately 1217 x 2437 mm - the standard metric size is 1220 x 2440 mm: http://cwc.ca/wood-products/panel-products/plywood/sizes/ http://cwc.ca/wood-products/panel-products/plywood/sizes/ Thicknesses (as noted in the table too) have similar "whole" metric numbers. You see this also on some (not all) general materials sold to the American consumer public - the actual material is metric sized, but marketed with imperial measurements. I think this is done both for cultural reasons, as well as just "momentum" and that the public is used to it. But the reality is (almost) everything is now metric, the public just isn't fully aware of it yet.
- Terretta 9y ago
  This doesn’t pass commen sense for me. Plywood measured in metric, converted to imperial if needed? I can imagine someone coming up with 4 feet by 8 feet as a standard size for building material. I don’t see them coming up with 1220mm x 2440mm and thinking “nailed it, perfect size for calculating how many of these to make a wall!” Also, since the gap between plywood takes space, plywood (and drywall) is a bit less than stated size to give you breathing room to put 4x8s repeating every 4 and 8 feet. That said I don’t know why a nominal 2×4 is actually 1½ × 3½. Used to be finishing work shaved it down, now they just make ‘em that way to be ornery.
  - abakker 9y ago
    The sizing is also dependent on intent. Floor underlayment is not the exact same size as furniture grade plywood. And MDF is actually 49"x97" to give you some extra room if you are laminating a veneer on it. It is true that various plywoods come in metric thickness though. Especially those made in China.
johncolanduoni 9y ago
> All water bottles in the US have both mililiters and fluid ounces on their label. That's actually required by federal law. A lot of commercial regulations in the US require metric measurements in addition to imperial.
- jaggederest 9y ago
  Legacy of the 1970s-1980s attempt to move the US onto the metric standard. Don't tell people who are annoyed by metric, but all the 'imperial' units we use now are 100% based on metric units. Our metrology has been metric since that time, all the day-to-day usage is derived units. Which is why an inch is exactly 2.54cm instead of some rounded fraction.

hugi 9y ago

As the U.S. loses political importance and mindshare, sites will stop using U.S. units. Conversion to metric will eventually happen. As for language, I'm kind of split. On one hand language is a tool for communication that becomes more efficient the more standardized it is. On the other hand, language is closely related to art and culture. I'm Icelandic (and a poet at heart) and I love my language deeply. I can succintly say things in Icelandic that can't esaily be expressed in English. And that probably applies to every language. So I'm torn. I don't want to lose my language. But I also want a more integrated world.

sneak 9y ago
You won't lose your language; your grandkids will just not bother to learn it.
- hugi 9y ago
  I have three kids and I seriously doubt their kids won't speak the language of their parents (assuming they'll live in Iceland). The transition happens much slower, although I've been watching it accelerate over the past couple of decades. English is encroaching on the language. We speak Icelandic, but there are small grammatical changes happening, making the language more English - and at the same time, we're losing Icelandic vocabulary. My prediction is that my grandkids (that's probably at least 13-15 years in the future (hopefully)) will speak Icelandic very similar to what I do, it'll just be a liiiittle different. But these small changes will certainly accumulate and the pace of change will probably accelerate with more communication and integration. So who knows what will happen in the next 50-100 years.
  - isostatic 9y ago
    Welsh was pretty much wiped out as the far more practical use of English press over the centuries. About 50 years ago there was a political movement to re-introduce it, laws were past to ensure that government communicated in Welsh on request , roadsigns were bilingual, and Welsh was taught in schools (which is probably just as useful as French being taught in schools). Language is the major barrier of freedom, I can theoretically get a job and move to Dublin, London, Berlin, Rome, Cadiz, Porto, Budapest, Taliin or Athens. In reality the language prevents it in most cases. In 100 years time we could either live in a fuedal society where you can live/work in a small area owned by a local baron who reports to an international mega corporation, with international style communications in a language nobody knows - just like 14th century England and Latin, or we could have a free borderless world where there is fictionless movement and communication. I hope technology will enable the latter before the former entrenchs again.

sweettea 9y ago

Imperial units are better, and I expect the world will convert to them in the next century. They're sane and easily divisible into eighths and more with a single significant digit of the next smaller unit, while going from 1 kilo to 125 grams is a awkward increase in digits. They're human scale: a pound is generally about a big handful, while a gram is hardly an easily estimated quantity for humans and a kilogram is awkwardly big to hold in one's hand. A cup and a pint are useful amounts of water to drink, while a liter is a bit more than a useful quantity to measure such things by. An inch is a knuckle on my finger, and a foot is the length of my forearm, while a meter is difficult to measure without a reference and a centimeter is a useful unit but I don't have an inbuilt measuring unit that long. I could go on, but I think this is a sufficient set of examples: metric is difficult to use for casual estimation (which is, after all, what one does most of the time, imperial is designed to be on a human scale and is better for everyday use and estimation. Edit: Not sarcasm. I work with imperial daily farming, and worked with metric doing chemistry in college.

hugi 9y ago
Before I upvote—this is sarcasm, right?
- wbl 9y ago
  "A half liter is too small and a liter too much"- Why the UK still uses the pint in bars.
  - NickNameNick 9y ago
    Do they really use pints? Most new 'pint' glasses I see are marked 56 Centi-litres.
    - goodcanadian 9y ago
      One imperial pint is 56.8 cl, so that is about a pint. It looks like they are shortchanging you 8ml.

myroon5 9y ago

Esperanto is probably the most successful attempt at language standardization so far. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto

pmarreck 9y ago
And how well is that doing, over the course of its entire existence? As well as the Dvorak keyboard layout, I imagine
- zanny 9y ago
  Dvorak is something anyone can use on their own any time. I imagine it is much more successful than Esperanto, because the only point of language is communication. It is the Facebook problem - you need a large network of participants to make a language work, or the language fails its purpose. Also, Esperanto is ugly as fuck. It has I believe 4 accented letters, and I have no idea why anyone would think when divising a new language that accents or umlauts are good ideas (unless all the letters supported them and had consistent meaning). Otherwise, just use new characters.

kwhitefoot 9y ago

The US does not use the imperial system, it uses US Customary.