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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,
by 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 agoAnd rental places being advertised by sq.ft. (or pi.ca. in French)
- RyanMcGreal 12y agoYes, and for larger areas, it's a toss-up whether it will be expressed in acres or hectares.
- dredmorbius 12y agoWhat is pi.ca. ?
- RyanMcGreal 12y agoI believe it's a shortening of pied carré, literally "foot squared".
- dredmorbius 12y agoThank you. That makes sense (I had no luck with online searches).
- bryanlarsen 12y agoJust say -40. Then it doesn't matter which scale you're using.
- RyanMcGreal 12y agoThankfully, 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 agoSouthwestern Ontario, but I also remember it from when I lived in the suburbs east of Toronto.