6 ms·

> Most other 'mile's are derivatives of the Roman mile which developed somewhat independently of the English units (foot, yard, inch, barleycorn, etc), ergo the

> Most other 'mile's are derivatives of the Roman mile which developed somewhat independently of the English units (foot, yard, inch, barleycorn, etc), ergo the weird conversion factors. The original Roman mile was 5000 Roman feet. Pre-metric Europe was full of units with weird conversion factors, based on a shared heritage (mixture of Roman and Germanic), but with lots of divergent evolution subsequently. England didn't really stand out; France, Spain, Italy, Germany, etc, were really no different. Then the Continent did away with most of that complexity by adopting metric, and for whatever reason the English dragged their feet on doing that, and their American offshoots even more so. But the fact that people have forgotten that the French/Germans/etc used to have feet/inches/miles/pounds/etc too, [0] albeit with somewhat different definitions, makes people think English units were somehow unique. They never were. The uniqueness is in the slowness in replacing them with metric, not the units themselves. [0] They still have some of these units for certain purposes. In France and Germany, the pound is still used, albeit redefined to be exactly 500 g. Nautical miles are used in maritime and aviation applications; American influence (and to a lesser degree British) led to the adoption of the Anglo-American foot as the unit of altitude in aviation – the foot French pilots use to measure altitudes is the English foot not the old French foot; etc

delta_p_delta_x 3y ago
> American influence (and to a lesser degree British) led to the adoption of the Anglo-American foot as the unit of altitude in aviation There are a few notes I have regarding this. The Airbus consortium initially set up the Airbus A300 cockpit entirely in SI units, but they realised this wouldn't sell well in the US, and they switched to feet and flight levels. Airfield weather data, including pressure and temperature readings in everywhere but the US are given in hectopascals and degrees Celsius. Many post-Warsaw Pact countries (Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Ukraine until recently) used to have a completely metric unit setup for their air traffic controls. Both Boeing and Airbus cockpits have settings to output altimeter readings in metres. > Then the Continent did away with most of that complexity by adopting metric, and for whatever reason the English dragged their feet on doing that, and their American offshoots even more so. If there's one export of the US I despise more than anything else, it is making legacy non-SI units relevant again because of its outsize influence in traditional and social media. I live in a country that metricated half a century ago, but I have Gen Z friends who measure their heights in feet and inches, and their gym weights in pounds. What the absolute hell. The SI units are the pinnacle of standardisation and the culmination of a three-hundred-year long effort to make life easier for everyone. I have no idea why the richest country in the world can't metricate properly. Get rid of legacy units, and we save billions in not printing the (XX fl. oz), (XX lbs), or (XX oz) on food packaging alone. It is ironic that a country that did away with colonialism, a whole lot of tea, and embraced the French and their revolution, never embraced the French units, but stuck with the English units.
- Mountain_Skies 3y ago
  Base ten is an unfortunate numeric choice and responsible for much of the hesitation to switch to metric. Maybe someday when we have millions of O'Neill Cylinder colonies, one of them will adopt base twelve instead, at which point the main reason against metric would go away.
  - skissane 3y ago
    > Base ten is an unfortunate numeric choice and responsible for much of the hesitation to switch to metric. Maybe someday when we have millions of O'Neill Cylinder colonies, one of them will adopt base twelve instead, at which point the main reason against metric would go away. I've heard this argument many times before, but I don't think it makes much sense. The US customary / British imperial measurements are not consistently based on base 12. Yes, there are 12 inches to a foot; but there are 16 (not 12) ounces in a pound, and 128 (not 12 or 144) US fluid ounces in a US gallon (versus 160 UK fluid ounces in a UK gallon). Fahrenheit has 180 degrees between the freezing and boiling points of water, with water freezing at 32 degrees – none of which has much to do with base 12 either. There is no widely used unit corresponding to 12 feet or a twelfth of a mile. If you really want a system of units based on base 12, the US customary / British imperial system ain't what you are looking for. Also, it ignores the fact that you can metricate while keeping a foot of 12 inches, if you define a new "metric foot" composed of 12 "metric inches". This has been done before – as I mentioned in an earlier comment, many European countries kept the pound when metricating, by defining a new "metric pound" of 500 g. Given the current standard US-UK inch is exactly 25.4 mm, one option would be to have a metric inch of 25 mm (= 2.5 cm), twelve of which would give a metric foot of 300 mm (= 30 cm, versus 30.48 cm exactly for the standard US-UK foot). Sure, having two different foots and inches (old and new) coexisting for a while might cause some confusion; but if the confusion isn't worth it, maybe base 12 isn't really worth it either. And to avoid the confusion, you could always give the new metric units different names ("moots and minches", maybe?)
    - p_l 3y ago
      A lot of traditional units are based on random reference points that were an issue from antiquity - consider how pretty much every market town kept their own measure references even if they used same terminology. That said, Fahrenheit use of brine solution for 0 and his wife's armpit for 100 remains among most WTF for me.
pwagland 3y ago
Footer to your footer. At least in the Netherlands, ounce is still used as well, it's defined to 100g.
- wnoise 3y ago
  That's over three times too big though.
  - kergonath 3y ago
    in the end, who cares? It’s just a name on a unit. There is no law of nature that puts a limit on its value. There always have been many definitions for an ounce (one of the reason for going metric in the first place); this one is just a bit on the large side.
wkat4242 3y ago
In the Netherlands we also colloquially use the 'ons' (ounce) which is defined though as 100g.
- e12e 3y ago
  But "hecto" (gram) is not used as a synonym?
  - c4mpute 3y ago
    In Germany the short "hecto" stands for "hectoliter", when ordering larger amounts of beer.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    No it's not, at least not in the Netherlands.
  - azepoi 3y ago
    This is commonly used in Italy modified in the form "etto"
- 0xFEE1DEAD 3y ago
  In Germany we've got 'Unze' (ounce) which is defined as ~30g which we only use when talking about precious metals. What we do use is 'Pfund' (pounds lbs) which is defined as 500g. I am amazed the nations of the world actually came to an agreement about what to use as base units and I can't even fathom what shit show it must've been before that. I live a 30min drive away from the Netherlands and your ounce is already 230% more then my ounce.
earthboundkid 3y ago
And everyone measures TVs in inches, somewhat bizarrely.
- bmicraft 3y ago
  We do measure TVs in Zoll here in German speaking countries, which has been redefined to exactly 1 in.
- skissane 3y ago
  Are they actually designed and manufactured in inches, or only marketed in inches? Almost everyone called 90 mm floppy disks "3.5 inch", despite the fact the formal standard which defined their dimensions was metric. I believe the same was true of the "5.25 inch" disks which preceded them. (I think the original 8-inch floppy disks were non-metric though???)
- pmontra 3y ago
  Gas and water pipes are often in inches too (Italy) probably because it's an old and critical infrastructure and nobody wants to risk mistakes by trying to fit a 1 inch pipe with a 25 mm one, or 1 1/4" with a 32 mm. Close but not close enough. However I guess that even American engines are measured in liters or cc, cubic centimeters.
  - skissane 3y ago
    > Gas and water pipes are often in inches too (Italy) English inches (now 25.4 mm) or Italian inches? (“once”/“oncia”-varied in definition between different parts of Italy, but was always at least a fraction more or less than the English one)
    - pmontra 3y ago
      English inches. I'm not sure I ever heard the Italian word oncia as a unit of length. I thought it was a translation of the imperial unit of weight, ounce. However all is possible in the world of the old semi forgotten traditional units.
userbinator 3y ago
English dragged their feet on doing that Pun intended? ;-) It's also worth noting that English and American units also differ slightly --- one of the more common examples being that the US gallon is not the same as the Imperial gallon.

delta_p_delta_x 3y ago

> American influence (and to a lesser degree British) led to the adoption of the Anglo-American foot as the unit of altitude in aviation There are a few notes I have regarding this. The Airbus consortium initially set up the Airbus A300 cockpit entirely in SI units, but they realised this wouldn't sell well in the US, and they switched to feet and flight levels. Airfield weather data, including pressure and temperature readings in everywhere but the US are given in hectopascals and degrees Celsius. Many post-Warsaw Pact countries (Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Ukraine until recently) used to have a completely metric unit setup for their air traffic controls. Both Boeing and Airbus cockpits have settings to output altimeter readings in metres. > Then the Continent did away with most of that complexity by adopting metric, and for whatever reason the English dragged their feet on doing that, and their American offshoots even more so. If there's one export of the US I despise more than anything else, it is making legacy non-SI units relevant again because of its outsize influence in traditional and social media. I live in a country that metricated half a century ago, but I have Gen Z friends who measure their heights in feet and inches, and their gym weights in pounds. What the absolute hell. The SI units are the pinnacle of standardisation and the culmination of a three-hundred-year long effort to make life easier for everyone. I have no idea why the richest country in the world can't metricate properly. Get rid of legacy units, and we save billions in not printing the (XX fl. oz), (XX lbs), or (XX oz) on food packaging alone. It is ironic that a country that did away with colonialism, a whole lot of tea, and embraced the French and their revolution, never embraced the French units, but stuck with the English units.

Mountain_Skies 3y ago
Base ten is an unfortunate numeric choice and responsible for much of the hesitation to switch to metric. Maybe someday when we have millions of O'Neill Cylinder colonies, one of them will adopt base twelve instead, at which point the main reason against metric would go away.
- skissane 3y ago
  > Base ten is an unfortunate numeric choice and responsible for much of the hesitation to switch to metric. Maybe someday when we have millions of O'Neill Cylinder colonies, one of them will adopt base twelve instead, at which point the main reason against metric would go away. I've heard this argument many times before, but I don't think it makes much sense. The US customary / British imperial measurements are not consistently based on base 12. Yes, there are 12 inches to a foot; but there are 16 (not 12) ounces in a pound, and 128 (not 12 or 144) US fluid ounces in a US gallon (versus 160 UK fluid ounces in a UK gallon). Fahrenheit has 180 degrees between the freezing and boiling points of water, with water freezing at 32 degrees – none of which has much to do with base 12 either. There is no widely used unit corresponding to 12 feet or a twelfth of a mile. If you really want a system of units based on base 12, the US customary / British imperial system ain't what you are looking for. Also, it ignores the fact that you can metricate while keeping a foot of 12 inches, if you define a new "metric foot" composed of 12 "metric inches". This has been done before – as I mentioned in an earlier comment, many European countries kept the pound when metricating, by defining a new "metric pound" of 500 g. Given the current standard US-UK inch is exactly 25.4 mm, one option would be to have a metric inch of 25 mm (= 2.5 cm), twelve of which would give a metric foot of 300 mm (= 30 cm, versus 30.48 cm exactly for the standard US-UK foot). Sure, having two different foots and inches (old and new) coexisting for a while might cause some confusion; but if the confusion isn't worth it, maybe base 12 isn't really worth it either. And to avoid the confusion, you could always give the new metric units different names ("moots and minches", maybe?)
  - p_l 3y ago
    A lot of traditional units are based on random reference points that were an issue from antiquity - consider how pretty much every market town kept their own measure references even if they used same terminology. That said, Fahrenheit use of brine solution for 0 and his wife's armpit for 100 remains among most WTF for me.

pwagland 3y ago

Footer to your footer. At least in the Netherlands, ounce is still used as well, it's defined to 100g.

wnoise 3y ago
That's over three times too big though.
- kergonath 3y ago
  in the end, who cares? It’s just a name on a unit. There is no law of nature that puts a limit on its value. There always have been many definitions for an ounce (one of the reason for going metric in the first place); this one is just a bit on the large side.

wkat4242 3y ago

In the Netherlands we also colloquially use the 'ons' (ounce) which is defined though as 100g.

e12e 3y ago
But "hecto" (gram) is not used as a synonym?
- c4mpute 3y ago
  In Germany the short "hecto" stands for "hectoliter", when ordering larger amounts of beer.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  No it's not, at least not in the Netherlands.
- azepoi 3y ago
  This is commonly used in Italy modified in the form "etto"
0xFEE1DEAD 3y ago
In Germany we've got 'Unze' (ounce) which is defined as ~30g which we only use when talking about precious metals. What we do use is 'Pfund' (pounds lbs) which is defined as 500g. I am amazed the nations of the world actually came to an agreement about what to use as base units and I can't even fathom what shit show it must've been before that. I live a 30min drive away from the Netherlands and your ounce is already 230% more then my ounce.

earthboundkid 3y ago

And everyone measures TVs in inches, somewhat bizarrely.

bmicraft 3y ago
We do measure TVs in Zoll here in German speaking countries, which has been redefined to exactly 1 in.
skissane 3y ago
Are they actually designed and manufactured in inches, or only marketed in inches? Almost everyone called 90 mm floppy disks "3.5 inch", despite the fact the formal standard which defined their dimensions was metric. I believe the same was true of the "5.25 inch" disks which preceded them. (I think the original 8-inch floppy disks were non-metric though???)
pmontra 3y ago
Gas and water pipes are often in inches too (Italy) probably because it's an old and critical infrastructure and nobody wants to risk mistakes by trying to fit a 1 inch pipe with a 25 mm one, or 1 1/4" with a 32 mm. Close but not close enough. However I guess that even American engines are measured in liters or cc, cubic centimeters.
- skissane 3y ago
  > Gas and water pipes are often in inches too (Italy) English inches (now 25.4 mm) or Italian inches? (“once”/“oncia”-varied in definition between different parts of Italy, but was always at least a fraction more or less than the English one)
  - pmontra 3y ago
    English inches. I'm not sure I ever heard the Italian word oncia as a unit of length. I thought it was a translation of the imperial unit of weight, ounce. However all is possible in the world of the old semi forgotten traditional units.

userbinator 3y ago

English dragged their feet on doing that Pun intended? ;-) It's also worth noting that English and American units also differ slightly --- one of the more common examples being that the US gallon is not the same as the Imperial gallon.