4 ms·

Japan has several. Not sure if they are obsolete. Rooms are often measured by tatami mats. a 6 mat room, an 8 mat room, etc... I also once bought a tape measur

Japan has several. Not sure if they are obsolete. Rooms are often measured by tatami mats. a 6 mat room, an 8 mat room, etc... I also once bought a tape measure assuming there was only one kind and it was metric but it turned out there are at least 2, metric and the shaku and I bought the wrong one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_units_of_measurement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_units_of_measurement

ilamont 6y ago
Taiwan (former Japanese colony) still uses 坪 (2 tatami mats) to measure the size of homes. Street markets often use 斤 to measure weight and price items. It’s .6 kg and the English term is “catty”
- carlmr 6y ago
  >Street markets often use 斤 to measure weight and price items. It’s .6 kg and the English term is “catty” In Mainland 斤 = 0.5kg = metric pound. Apparently 台斤 is used to disambiguate the catty from the pound.
Scoundreller 6y ago
In a way, we all do this. A 4-person tent can hold about 4 teenagers travelling with nothing. An airline seat is built to the “standard” person, but the average person is overweight/obese in USA. A “lunch” can vary from 500 to 2500 calories. A medium coffee = ???. When a Canadian coffee chain expanded to USA, an order for a medium was put into their L cups. A Tetra Pak of Tropicana has gone from 2L to 1.89L to 1.75L. Don’t even get me started on clothes. Surprisingly, the government has done a great job at maintaining standards in the tobacco industry. Nobody is selling packs of cigarettes with 19 slightly-shorter cigarettes.
- marshmallow_12 6y ago
  nothing makes me angrier then slightly-shorter products. I.e sandwiches packets etc. It's cheating and wrong.
- zxcvbn4038 6y ago
  Imagine my surprise when I designed my first tree house then discovered that 2x4 lumber was actually 1.5x3.5.
  - mc32 6y ago
    If you get lumber from the Amish, the lumber measures the actual units.
Clewza313 6y ago
It's even worse than that: Tokyo, Nagoya and Kyoto all have their own incompatible tatami sizes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatami#Size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatami#Size

ilamont 6y ago

Taiwan (former Japanese colony) still uses 坪 (2 tatami mats) to measure the size of homes. Street markets often use 斤 to measure weight and price items. It’s .6 kg and the English term is “catty”

carlmr 6y ago
>Street markets often use 斤 to measure weight and price items. It’s .6 kg and the English term is “catty” In Mainland 斤 = 0.5kg = metric pound. Apparently 台斤 is used to disambiguate the catty from the pound.

Scoundreller 6y ago

In a way, we all do this. A 4-person tent can hold about 4 teenagers travelling with nothing. An airline seat is built to the “standard” person, but the average person is overweight/obese in USA. A “lunch” can vary from 500 to 2500 calories. A medium coffee = ???. When a Canadian coffee chain expanded to USA, an order for a medium was put into their L cups. A Tetra Pak of Tropicana has gone from 2L to 1.89L to 1.75L. Don’t even get me started on clothes. Surprisingly, the government has done a great job at maintaining standards in the tobacco industry. Nobody is selling packs of cigarettes with 19 slightly-shorter cigarettes.

marshmallow_12 6y ago
nothing makes me angrier then slightly-shorter products. I.e sandwiches packets etc. It's cheating and wrong.
zxcvbn4038 6y ago
Imagine my surprise when I designed my first tree house then discovered that 2x4 lumber was actually 1.5x3.5.
- mc32 6y ago
  If you get lumber from the Amish, the lumber measures the actual units.

Clewza313 6y ago

It's even worse than that: Tokyo, Nagoya and Kyoto all have their own incompatible tatami sizes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatami#Size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatami#Size