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I'm not sure what the situation is in other European countries, but in the UK we use different units depending on the use so most people are use to working with
by kypro 4y ago
I'm not sure what the situation is in other European countries, but in the UK we use different units depending on the use so most people are use to working with both imperial and metric.
Perhaps with the exception of fahrenheit most people here will know what you mean if you use units like feet and will often even prefer thinking in feet over metres for certain things. Personally I default to feet for something like height or a floorplan, although I can think in metres quite easily too.
- tempestn 4y agoSame thing in Canada.
- exDM69 4y agoNo, not many people in continental Europe are comfortable with miles, feet and inches. But sailboat length is traditionally measured in feet. Same for aircraft altitude. So sailors and aviators are more likely to use feet (and nautical miles) as measurement.
- hanche 4y agoAnd knots. Speed limits at sea in Norway (in harbours and other places with much traffic and little room for maneuvering) are always in knots. But we measure water depth in meters, not fathoms.
- kimburgess 4y agoNautical miles have nothing to do with imperial units. It's now defined in reference to SI meter, but it originates as 1/60th of a degree of latitude.
- defrost 4y ago> it originates as 1/60th of a degree of latitude. So ... not even a fixed length but one that varies by latitude (given the Earth is an oblate spheroid | rotated ellipsoid | flattened sphere) that's something on the order of 20 metres of sloppiness by my reckoning.
- kimburgess 4y agoYep, 18m between the poles and the equator. …which is why the French Navy (who originally defined the unit) switched it to be SI derived in 1906 and the international standard was updated in 1929.
- iforgotpassword 4y agoIn Germany, the only things I can think of off the top of my head is bicycles(wheels) and screens, which we measure in inches instead of cm. But I couldn't even tell you how many cm to an inch. I just know how big a 40" TV or a 28" bike is.
- zajio1am 4y agoHere in Czechia, TV screens are in cm, but computer monitors are in inches.
- iforgotpassword 4y agoFunnily enough, about ~15 years ago TVs were still in cm, but somehow when flat screens came along (and people generally bought much bigger TVs) we switched to using inches. Computer screens have always been inches afaict.
- bitwize 4y agoIn Japan if you buy, say, a 65" TV, it will be labeled a "65 style" with a note that it's about 160 cm diagonal (panel inch sizes are never exact). The main exception? MacBooks. Those will be labeled e.g. "14 inch" (14インチ).