dbd33

I liked this. I don't bother with metric myself but it's handy to know what a the locals expect.

scrubbedexpat091

I saw this on reddit, it's true though for the most part.

dbd33

It doesn't mention houses which come in square feet and sit on acres.

BristolUK

And apartments which involve halves.

Hurlabrick

Love it, very funny and true!

I assumed Canada was faaaarrrr more metric than the UK (based on rad signs all being in km), buy was I in for a shock. Now discovering that all construction, kitchen units and appliances are in imperial (presumably courtesy of the raher more populous and powerful southern neighbour).

AdrianR

When I lived in Mexico, the US influence was also strong. In construction, there was much use of the 'metric inch' (25mm); a piece of lumber measuring 50x100mm was, invariably, 'un dos por cuatro'.

Partially discharged

Agree with the chart. I try and avoid imperial wherever possible other than my height and weight when asked by others. I deal with architectural/engineering plans all the time and find that even though the standards/requirements are all in metres or m2, many people still think 10' = 3 m which on a tight property is not the case and can cause problems.

Farmers tend to say how much rain they got in fractions of an inch and how many acres of land they own. Few Canadians convert back to $ per gallon of gas or speed in mph.

Danny B

Reminds me of this chart.

scrubbedexpat091

When I was in school in California they taught metric in the 80's and 90's (no idea if they still do) in math classes, but they taught it in such a dumb fashion is was frustrating, instead of just teaching metric, all they ever wanted us to do was convert US to metric and metric to US and well I never picked metric up in school, now I am a little better in metric, I know 0 is cold and water freezes, and I know anything above 27 is not comfortable, distance in KM's makes enough sense for me to reasonable understand how far away something is on the smaller front, but say 4,500 km away from Vancouver, I will need to convert to miles to fully understand how far they are talking about, CM, meters etc are useless to me, I couldn't tell you how far 2000 meters for example when a sign says next exit 2000 meters, where in the US 1/2 mile or 3/4 mile makes sense to me.

I am mixed bag now using a little of both depending on what I am trying to accomplish.

scilly

I always had to use metric when I was working as that was the common standard in research labs, but then I had to use imperial in the real world, so I've always been a bit split minded about measures.

Now I use imperial for my height and weight, and for size of house, but I use metric for temperature in the fridge or freezer as well as weather, and metric for almost everything else.

I've given in when cooking, and use cups as that seems to be more the standard here, even though "cups" are different depending on whether you are talking US, UK or Australia! I have cook books using imperial, metric and cups solely or even all 3 depending on the recipe.

dbd33

Well, yes, I, of course, do. When the bathroom scale broke it was quite the production to get a new one with the scale in stones.

caretaker

Except the cabinets, which are metric.

dbd33

Everything Equine is imperial except horse drugs; dosages are based on mil/100lb. Commercial fertilizers are also mixed measure litres/acre

Novocastrian

Vive le Bilinguisme!!!

dbd33

Indeed, I think it was Jings here who explained that commercial pipes are imperial widths but metric lengths so, 3 meters of six inch pipe.