for me a ruler is something that tells me how many centimeters there is in whatever it is I want to measure - but maybe it's for linguistic reasons? e.g. in fre

for me a ruler is something that tells me how many centimeters there is in whatever it is I want to measure - but maybe it's for linguistic reasons? e.g. in french I'd say "y'a combien de centimètres là?" when measuring something long with a tape meter and someone's help, which translates to "how many centimeters are there right now?" more or less