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this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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They are right, no one ever does that. Their reasoning for the imperial system being practical is stupid though. The reason it can be practical is that its useful to have a unit the size of a foot sometimes. Metric is better in general, but there are aspects of the imperial system I would miss if I switched entirely. I just use imperial in casual conversation and metric for anything important.
edit: To be clear I'm not saying conversion from feet to miles isn't a problem because no one does that, its the opposite. No one does it because its a problem.
I wish decimeter was used more commonly. It kinda takes up the place of the imperial foot.
That's the great thing about being a metric user in the US. It's not the common system here, and the only people who really use it consistently are those who do so for work, and those who just enjoy it the same way one might enjoy learning a new language. It's sort of a grassroots thing here. And because it's not the standard system, there's no one here telling us what measures are socially acceptable to use and which aren't. Use the decimeter. Hell, if you like it, use it in Europe, you might get a weird look, but it won't be like asking for the distance to the deli in leagues. They'll still understand. In the US, use the decimeter if you want. I've used the metric system exclusively for so long, started as a sort of personal test, that I tend to think in metric now. I look at something and think "30cm" more than I think "a foot," occasionally I'll think "bout a 1/3 of a meter."
Have fun with it. Also, hot tip. If you ever struggle with temps, it's percentage of boiling. 0% of boiling is frozen. 100% of boiling is boiling. 20% of boiling is nice.
Sigh, here we go again…
Yes YOU don’t do that. Because you can’t.
Everybody in Europe can and does so. There’s nothing arcane or mysterious about the metric system. I have no issues telling you how many litres of water go into a 50 x 50 x 200 cm aquarium, or a pool with a 3.5 m diameter and 80 cm height. Good luck doing that with your inches and feet and quarts and gallons.
There’s nothing „more useful“ about either a foot or a meter. Either you know how much it is or you don’t. Everybody knows what a meter is. For me it’s a large step. My arm from elbow to fingertips is 50 cm. Or 1/2 m… A sheet of paper is 30 cm (actually it’s 297 mm, but that’s another story), and so are rulers. Which, btw, is very close to a „foot“.
Your foot btw most likely is not as long as a „foot“, and a small woman’s size is easily 20% off. And no, that’s not „in the ballpark“.
I won't argue that, its a flawed measurement system. My goal isn't to show you why imperial is so much better than metric, because its obviously not. That doesn't mean imperial is never useful though.
They can both do the same job, but its more convenient to have smaller units depending on what you're measuring. I find the size of a foot to be convenient for measuring things in casual situations where accuracy and precision aren't priorities.
We don't literally measure it with our feet, that's just what its called.
See, that’s what apparently many people don’t understand: with metric you don’t have „larger or smaller units“. You have one unit and you scale it to your needs. It’s not like we have „the meter“ and „the centimeter“ and have no clue what’s in between. There’s absolutely nothing more convenient about having multiple units for the same physical property.
Again: There’s nothing more or less precise about metric or imperial. You have a mental image of a „foot“ the same way I have a mental image of a ruler or a sheet of paper, i.e. 30 cm.
I don’t really know what a litre is. I know what a beer bottle looks like, or a milk carton, the same way you know what a quart of milk looks like. Pour a quart on the floor and ask someone how much that is, they probably don’t know.
Oh, I definitely had other people tell me imperial is „more human“ because a foot is the size of your foot and an inch is the size of the tip of your thumb.
That's the same thing, the units are just proportional.
I know, its just easier to say a foot than 30 centimeters. That's why I use it in casual conversation, and not in anything important.
That's not the part I'm saying is convenient.
They can both be used to measure things precisely, but metric is more convenient in those situations usually. If I need to accurately measure something, I would use metric because the advantages of imperial are probably not applicable. If I'm just estimating and it doesn't matter much, I'll probably use imperial because I won't have to do any conversions with that number, or anything else imperial struggles with.
Those people are wrong.
Sure, if you put it like that. But I do have the feeling many US people treat imperial units like completely different things and have absolutely no mental concept of a relation between them, especially between length and volume.
That’s just a completely arbitrary thing. It’s easier to answer „how tall are you“ with „one eighty“ instead of „five foot eleven“ 🤷♀️
It doesn’t seem to be an issue for „metric people“ at all, nobody is missing the foot in Europe.
Because if it were convenient we would have that, the same way we have a ton, or a pound (500 g), which are in common use. You have the decimeter (10 cm), but nobody uses it. There used to be a unit called „Elle“, which is 50 cm, and it’s just the name for the stick, nobody says „give me 3 Ellen of canvas“.
I still fail to see those advantages.
Yes, because you’re used doing so, not because it’s more practical or convenient. Metric people do estimate things as well.
There is certainly no shortage of Americans that don't understand the metric system, or hate it for nonsensical reasons. I was once asked to measure a piece of wood and I said it in centimeters because it was exactly x cm long, and they said something to the effect of "not that commie shit". They seriously wanted to work with fractions of an inch instead of touching that evil foreign system.
Its arbitrary if its not something you care about. Also that's not a great example for height. Usually its just two syllables. 5' 4", 5' 5" etc. You only have to say foot if you are an exact number of feet tall. That way you don't tell anyone "I'm 6". Most people's height in cm will not be a multiple of ten, so it will be longer than 180's three syllables.
It's just an inconvenience, it's not worth learning imperial to save a little time. Especially when no one around you would understand what you're talking about.
The units are usually sized intuitively for everyday use. Just look at Fahrenheit vs Celsius. The only thing I use Fahrenheit for is the weather. 0 is too cold, 100 is too hot. That's subjective of course, but it seems more intuitive to me than Celsius. The boiling point of water doesn't matter to me when I'm deciding what clothes to wear for the weather. Celsius works fine but it makes less sense for that application in my opinion.
Or, Europeans only use metric for those things because they don't know imperial. I'm not saying that's a bad thing either, if you don't know imperial then its not worth learning. The advantages are small enough that its not worth the effort, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
Of course you don't, I'm not saying Celsius is incomprehensible.
I'm not arguing Fahrenheit is better for that, use Celsius.
I disagree, reference points are extremely important. That's one of the reasons Celsius is so useful. Maybe its a weird example but one thing I use it for is brewing temperatures for coffee. I know the closer it is to 100, the closer it is to boiling. That's very useful information to me. I could do the same thing with Fahrenheit but the number is so weird that I don't even remember what it is.
It also affects how small the units are which is pretty important. Farenheit has smaller units, so it can be more precise without having to use decimals. If I tell someone what temperature it is outside, I will be more exact than you most of the time.
Me just being used to it isn't a good argument. I barely remember many aspects of the imperial system because I've replaced it with metric. The aspects of imperial I still use were chosen intentionally.
I could also say that you're "just used to it". I could say the reason you're so resistant to any advantages of imperial is just because you learned how to do things with metric even when it wasn't optimal. The reason I'm not saying that, is because I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you are here to have a real conversation. Do me the same favor.
I have said multiple times at this point that its not worth learning imperial for whatever advantages it may have. Its obviously not good to create new units for every application. But that's not what I said is it? I said there are aspects of imperial I would miss if I switched entirely.
Show me the indicator for Celsius that makes it a proper size for that application.
I guess that's how you would see it if you just ignore all of my arguments and assume metric is better at everything all the time. Do you think I'm doing this because I'm patriotic? You think I started this argument where I openly admit imperial's faults, just to defend America's pride? You have ignored nearly all of my arguments because you are unable to accept the fact that metric isn't better at literally everything. Nothing is perfect, and I'm not sucking america's dick by telling you that. The one thing I got wrong was assuming you wanted a real conversation.
Sometimes I think there was a missed opportunity in defining an easy conversion between inches and cm. It is 2.54 cm to 1". Why couldn't it simply be 2.5? Then a 2x4 from the building supplier could simply be renamed a 5x10. 5.8x11.6 doesn't quite roll off the tongue as well.
My understanding is that the metre was inspired by nautical measures? So the distance from pole to equator along sea level is supposedly 10000 km. But that's pretty approximate, and there is a more rigorous definition that involves the wavelength of a certain type of radiation. But that number is quite arbitrary-sounding. Couldn't they have chosen it to line up with the imperial system at some level to aid migration? Anyway, that train has left the station and I'll stop ranting now…
At the time when the metric system was created, imperial units weren't standardized at all, so if centimeters lined up with one definition of inch, they wouldn't line up with the many other definitions anyway.
Point taken. Reading up on it on wikipedia, I love the the legal definition from 1814, wherein one inch = "three grains of sound ripe barley being taken out the middle of the ear, well dried, and laid end to end in a row".