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I hadn't considered that the point of this article was to communicate outside of the U.S. Sure. For the rest of the English-Speaking world, use Centigrade. F

I hadn't considered that the point of this article was to communicate outside of the U.S. Sure. For the rest of the English-Speaking world, use Centigrade. For the U.S. market, Farhenheit works better. At first look to an American, 104 is SEVEN greater than 97; 40 is only four bigger than 36; 36 is slightly over freezing; and 40 is noticeably more comfortable. You might think that Americans are going to think about ratios and worry that 40/36 might be greater than 104/97, but 1) calculating ratios like that is not a common U.S. thing, and 2) by using an arbitrary end point, Farhenheit discourages applying ratios to temperatures. On second look, for an American, those numbers should not be attended to at all, because they are shrouded in the ambiguity of what you will get after you do the math. About half of Americans can't do multi-step math even with pencil and paper (according to the National Adult Literacy Survey of the National Center for Educational Statistics in the U.S. government). There is nothing misleading in translating to to Fahrenheit. Why sacrifice rhetorical advantage by trying to make Americans more "civilised"? (Mind you, on that front we're already doomed, spelling it "civilized".) What this brings up is endowing Huffpost with automated localization.

foobar1962 8y ago
> I hadn't considered that the point of this article was to communicate outside of the U.S. Sure. For the rest of the English-Speaking world, use Centigrade. The article started with “Americans” and not “We” so I assumed it was written for an international audience. I think the general theme of the article is pretty global and not just applicable to Americans. I can see the same thing happening here in Australia. A small temperature change won’t have much affect on anything, really, except where it does. Those places will be where the temperatures hover around freezing point of water (in whatever units you choose). Regions that usually have mild frost or snow in winter won’t get that any more. That will have a huge change on the flora and fauna. Plant species that cannot tolerate frost will invade and displace the natives. In Australia the warming effect is being felt already by wine growers. Regions previously too cold for grapes are being converted to vineyards. Regions currently growing cold-climate grapes are being replanted to warmer climate varieties.

foobar1962 8y ago

> I hadn't considered that the point of this article was to communicate outside of the U.S. Sure. For the rest of the English-Speaking world, use Centigrade. The article started with “Americans” and not “We” so I assumed it was written for an international audience. I think the general theme of the article is pretty global and not just applicable to Americans. I can see the same thing happening here in Australia. A small temperature change won’t have much affect on anything, really, except where it does. Those places will be where the temperatures hover around freezing point of water (in whatever units you choose). Regions that usually have mild frost or snow in winter won’t get that any more. That will have a huge change on the flora and fauna. Plant species that cannot tolerate frost will invade and displace the natives. In Australia the warming effect is being felt already by wine growers. Regions previously too cold for grapes are being converted to vineyards. Regions currently growing cold-climate grapes are being replanted to warmer climate varieties.