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> seems confusing if so It is no more confusing to Americans than the fact that Europeans use A4 is to Europeans. Why should it be? Just like you didn’t know s

> seems confusing if so It is no more confusing to Americans than the fact that Europeans use A4 is to Europeans. Why should it be? Just like you didn’t know standards other than A4 exist, Americans don’t think about the fact that standards other than 8.5x11 inches (I.e. letter) exist. All printers, binders, folders, hole punchers, etc. are made with letter size paper in mind, and most people unless they are involved in business with other countries have never encountered an A4 sheet of paper in their lives and probably have no idea other standards exist.

diggan 2y ago
> It is no more confusing to Americans than the fact that Europeans use A4 is to Europeans. Why should it be? Well, A4 (and variants) are not Europe-specific formats, it's the formats most of the world except some few countries (including the US) use, so I'd say it's slightly more surprising than the other way around.
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  Right, but why does that make letter size confusing? Even if every other country in the world used A4, the only people in the US who would even notice would be people who commonly do business with other countries or who live near the border. And in reality, Canada and Mexico also use letter so the border thing doesn’t apply. So why should letter confuse us just because other people use something else?
  - diggan 2y ago
    > Right, but why does that make letter size confusing? That's the part I initially quoted; "the paper that the text was printed on wasn’t an A4, it was smaller and not a size I was familiar with. I measured it and found that it’s a US letter size paper at about 21.5cm x 27.9cm" The author isn't from North America, so they had forgotten the format was different, so they got confused when they assumed it would have been A4 like the rest of the world, but it wasn't. > the only people in the US who would even notice would be people who commonly do business with other countries or who live near the border Or, as in the case of the author, they live outside of North American and send/receive letters to/from North America.
echoangle 2y ago
A4 isn’t some random format, you can derive it with three pieces of information: A0 is 1 square meter An to An+1 means cutting the paper along the middle of the longer edge Each An has the same aspect ratio Those are pretty useful properties and precisely define the dimensions of A4.
- ElevenLathe 2y ago
  Why is this useful if you want to write a letter?
  - echoangle 2y ago
    For a normal letter, it probably doesn’t matter. But it’s useful in general and doesn’t make it worse for writing letters, so it’s still better to use than a specific letter format with worse properties.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  True, but I don’t understand why this would make letter size confusing to Americans. European office workers are not sitting around marveling at the mathematical elegance of the definition of A series paper. It just doesn’t matter in daily life.
  - tialaramex 2y ago
    > It just doesn’t matter in daily life. Like a lot of mathematics it does matter in your daily life but you actually just don't think about it because of course this works - unless you're an American and so no it doesn't. The A-series paper sizes mean everything scales very naturally. Poster? Pamphlet? It's just the same ratios again but bigger or smaller. There is a single design where this works, and that's why the A-series exists, you can't just pick anything, only this works.
    - 2y ago

diggan 2y ago

> It is no more confusing to Americans than the fact that Europeans use A4 is to Europeans. Why should it be? Well, A4 (and variants) are not Europe-specific formats, it's the formats most of the world except some few countries (including the US) use, so I'd say it's slightly more surprising than the other way around.

School-Cotton 2y ago
Right, but why does that make letter size confusing? Even if every other country in the world used A4, the only people in the US who would even notice would be people who commonly do business with other countries or who live near the border. And in reality, Canada and Mexico also use letter so the border thing doesn’t apply. So why should letter confuse us just because other people use something else?
- diggan 2y ago
  > Right, but why does that make letter size confusing? That's the part I initially quoted; "the paper that the text was printed on wasn’t an A4, it was smaller and not a size I was familiar with. I measured it and found that it’s a US letter size paper at about 21.5cm x 27.9cm" The author isn't from North America, so they had forgotten the format was different, so they got confused when they assumed it would have been A4 like the rest of the world, but it wasn't. > the only people in the US who would even notice would be people who commonly do business with other countries or who live near the border Or, as in the case of the author, they live outside of North American and send/receive letters to/from North America.

echoangle 2y ago

A4 isn’t some random format, you can derive it with three pieces of information: A0 is 1 square meter An to An+1 means cutting the paper along the middle of the longer edge Each An has the same aspect ratio Those are pretty useful properties and precisely define the dimensions of A4.

ElevenLathe 2y ago
Why is this useful if you want to write a letter?
- echoangle 2y ago
  For a normal letter, it probably doesn’t matter. But it’s useful in general and doesn’t make it worse for writing letters, so it’s still better to use than a specific letter format with worse properties.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
School-Cotton 2y ago
True, but I don’t understand why this would make letter size confusing to Americans. European office workers are not sitting around marveling at the mathematical elegance of the definition of A series paper. It just doesn’t matter in daily life.
- tialaramex 2y ago
  > It just doesn’t matter in daily life. Like a lot of mathematics it does matter in your daily life but you actually just don't think about it because of course this works - unless you're an American and so no it doesn't. The A-series paper sizes mean everything scales very naturally. Poster? Pamphlet? It's just the same ratios again but bigger or smaller. There is a single design where this works, and that's why the A-series exists, you can't just pick anything, only this works.
  - 2y ago