4 ms·

In Ireland we use a mix. Miles for casual talk, KMs for speeding tickets. Pounds when cooking, stones for people & kgs for everything else. Inches in carpentry

by netcan 12y ago

In Ireland we use a mix. Miles for casual talk, KMs for speeding tickets. Pounds when cooking, stones for people & kgs for everything else. Inches in carpentry and horsepower for cars. In a lot of places metric is a lingua franca kind of like latin. It's used in international, formal or academic settings (like a space launch) but the average farmer speaks a local dialect more natively.

RyanMcGreal 12y ago
It's similar in Canada. The country formally converted from imperial to metric between 1970 and 1983 for temperature measurements, road signs and speed limits, consumer goods packaging (volume and weight), and so on. However, due to our physical and cultural proximity to the US, many consumer goods are sold in "soft-metric" quantities: 454 grams of butter, 273 milliletres of pop and so on. Food recipes are still mostly imperial - cups, teaspoons, tablespoons and so on - though recipes by weight (e.g. for baking) come in either or both formats. Similarly, body weights are still mainly imperial (pounds but not stone) unless you're at the doctor's office, in which case your weight is taken in kilograms. Realistically, most Canadians know both systems and routinely convert between them. For weather, we tend to use whichever measure sounds more dramatic: Fahrenheit for hot summer days (109 degrees with the Humidex!) but Celsius for cold winter days (minus 30 with the wind chill!).
- raverbashing 12y ago
  And rental places being advertised by sq.ft. (or pi.ca. in French)
  - RyanMcGreal 12y ago
    Yes, and for larger areas, it's a toss-up whether it will be expressed in acres or hectares.
  - dredmorbius 12y ago
    What is pi.ca. ?
    - RyanMcGreal 12y ago
      I believe it's a shortening of pied carré, literally "foot squared".
      - dredmorbius 12y ago
        Thank you. That makes sense (I had no luck with online searches).
- bryanlarsen 12y ago
  Just say -40. Then it doesn't matter which scale you're using.
  - RyanMcGreal 12y ago
    Thankfully, that's not the case very often. :)
- randlet 12y ago
  "For weather, we tend to use whichever measure sounds more dramatic: Fahrenheit for hot summer days" Strange...I never hear that in Ontario! Whereabouts in Canada are you?
  - RyanMcGreal 12y ago
    Southwestern Ontario, but I also remember it from when I lived in the suburbs east of Toronto.
ljf 12y ago
In the UK we are about the same, but MPH for speeding tickets too. Though for all modern scientific stuff we are fully metric.
marcosdumay 12y ago
It seems that every place uses some kind of mix. Here at Brazil we get TVs measured in inches (the government just issued a law forcing them to be measured in cm, so there is also a small, mostly hidden number, with 2 decimal places, somewhere on the box), and receipts are measured in cups and spoons (but I've never seen a correctly sized spoon). Some farmers use a crazy set of measurement, where units vary in size from one state to another, and even between neighboring cities, and stuff with a small market use whatever their biggest market use (what normaly means, whatever the US uses).
anigbrowl 12y ago
Yeah, I like metric but I still prefer my beer measured in pints. The difference is that while people have preferences like this, everyone knows metric is The Standard. There's only one long stretch of road in the US with metric signage, and even that's controversial: http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2014/10/04/arizona-highway-signs-in-metric-units-may-change/16724615/ http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2014/10/04... Hilariously, people in the comments on that article demand miles because they're 'English.' I sometimes think Americans secretly miss being ruled from London.
- abruzzi 12y ago
  > Yeah, I like metric but I still prefer my beer measured in pints. Its funny. Orwell was against the metric system, so there is a small amusing scene in 1984 where on the proles (an old man) in a bar complains that he hates liters of beer. "'Ark at 'im! Calls 'isself a barman and don't know what a pint is! Why, a pint's the 'alf of a quart, and there's four quarts to the gallon. 'Ave to teach you the A, B, C next." "Never heard of 'em,' said the barman shortly. 'Litre and half litres - that's all we serve. There's the glasses on the shelf in front of you." "I likes a pint," persisted the old man. "You could 'a drawed me off a pint easy enough. We didn't 'ave these bleeding litres when I was a young man."
- whyaduck 12y ago
  As Arizona Republic comment sections go (especially on stories related to the border with Mexico, language or immigration), that one's so tame it's almost charming.

by netcan 12y ago

RyanMcGreal 12y ago

It's similar in Canada. The country formally converted from imperial to metric between 1970 and 1983 for temperature measurements, road signs and speed limits, consumer goods packaging (volume and weight), and so on. However, due to our physical and cultural proximity to the US, many consumer goods are sold in "soft-metric" quantities: 454 grams of butter, 273 milliletres of pop and so on. Food recipes are still mostly imperial - cups, teaspoons, tablespoons and so on - though recipes by weight (e.g. for baking) come in either or both formats. Similarly, body weights are still mainly imperial (pounds but not stone) unless you're at the doctor's office, in which case your weight is taken in kilograms. Realistically, most Canadians know both systems and routinely convert between them. For weather, we tend to use whichever measure sounds more dramatic: Fahrenheit for hot summer days (109 degrees with the Humidex!) but Celsius for cold winter days (minus 30 with the wind chill!).

raverbashing 12y ago
And rental places being advertised by sq.ft. (or pi.ca. in French)
- RyanMcGreal 12y ago
  Yes, and for larger areas, it's a toss-up whether it will be expressed in acres or hectares.
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  What is pi.ca. ?
  - RyanMcGreal 12y ago
    I believe it's a shortening of pied carré, literally "foot squared".
    - dredmorbius 12y ago
      Thank you. That makes sense (I had no luck with online searches).
bryanlarsen 12y ago
Just say -40. Then it doesn't matter which scale you're using.
- RyanMcGreal 12y ago
  Thankfully, that's not the case very often. :)
randlet 12y ago
"For weather, we tend to use whichever measure sounds more dramatic: Fahrenheit for hot summer days" Strange...I never hear that in Ontario! Whereabouts in Canada are you?
- RyanMcGreal 12y ago
  Southwestern Ontario, but I also remember it from when I lived in the suburbs east of Toronto.

ljf 12y ago

In the UK we are about the same, but MPH for speeding tickets too. Though for all modern scientific stuff we are fully metric.

marcosdumay 12y ago

It seems that every place uses some kind of mix. Here at Brazil we get TVs measured in inches (the government just issued a law forcing them to be measured in cm, so there is also a small, mostly hidden number, with 2 decimal places, somewhere on the box), and receipts are measured in cups and spoons (but I've never seen a correctly sized spoon). Some farmers use a crazy set of measurement, where units vary in size from one state to another, and even between neighboring cities, and stuff with a small market use whatever their biggest market use (what normaly means, whatever the US uses).

anigbrowl 12y ago

Yeah, I like metric but I still prefer my beer measured in pints. The difference is that while people have preferences like this, everyone knows metric is The Standard. There's only one long stretch of road in the US with metric signage, and even that's controversial: http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2014/10/04/arizona-highway-signs-in-metric-units-may-change/16724615/ http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2014/10/04... Hilariously, people in the comments on that article demand miles because they're 'English.' I sometimes think Americans secretly miss being ruled from London.

abruzzi 12y ago
> Yeah, I like metric but I still prefer my beer measured in pints. Its funny. Orwell was against the metric system, so there is a small amusing scene in 1984 where on the proles (an old man) in a bar complains that he hates liters of beer. "'Ark at 'im! Calls 'isself a barman and don't know what a pint is! Why, a pint's the 'alf of a quart, and there's four quarts to the gallon. 'Ave to teach you the A, B, C next." "Never heard of 'em,' said the barman shortly. 'Litre and half litres - that's all we serve. There's the glasses on the shelf in front of you." "I likes a pint," persisted the old man. "You could 'a drawed me off a pint easy enough. We didn't 'ave these bleeding litres when I was a young man."
whyaduck 12y ago
As Arizona Republic comment sections go (especially on stories related to the border with Mexico, language or immigration), that one's so tame it's almost charming.