1 teaspoon = 1/8 fl oz
1 dessert spoon = 1/4 fl oz
1 table spoon = 1/2 fl oz
1 dessert spoon = 2 teaspoons
1 table spoon = 2 dessert spoons
1 teaspoon = 3.5ml
1 dessert spoon = 7ml
1 table spoon = 14ml
1 British teaspoon = 1 US teaspoon
1 British Dessert spoon = 1 US table spoon
1 British table spoon = 1 US serving spoon

Eh?

That as well.

See, metric is a pain in the arse. It doesn't even have a standard tablespoon.

where on earth did you find that pile of drivel? A tablespoon is three teaspoons (except in Australia where it's four cos they're greedy) and is customarily defined as 15ml.

I suppose, to play dbd at his own game, there's also some ridiculous American archaic definition as well, that's no use to anyone - seven sixteenths of a gill, or two thirds of a dry fluid ounce of wheat flour, or nine thousandths of a bushel, or some such nonsense.

Yep, totally bugs me when food is sold by the pint, or quart, or bushel. Scales seem to be a rare thing in Canada.

Can something be both American and archaic? I'd have bet fourpence three farthings against that.

erm... America?

Or is it...

TABLESPOON MEASURES:
Margaret Powell (British) 1970 Tablespoon = 18 ml
Australian and New Zealand Complete cooking 1973 = Tablespoon = 25 ml
Best of Cooking (Hamlyn) - Tablespoon, (Australia) = 20 ml
Best of Cooking (Hamlyn) - Tablespoon, (British) = 17,7 ml
Best of Cooking (Hamlyn) - Tablespoon, (America) 14,2
Indian Cooking, Chowhary 1952 - = Tablespoon = 25 ml
Cook and Enjoy, De Villiers 1971 (South Africa) = Tablespoon = 12,5 ml
Complete South African Cookbook (South Africa) 1979 Tablespoon = 12,5
The Australian Women's weekly 1978 = 20 ml

Or alternatively...


British Tablespoon = 17,7 ml, 18 ml, 15 ml
Australian Tablespoon = 20 ml or 25 ml
Canadian Tablespoon = 15 ml
American Tablespoon = 14,2, 14,79
South African Tablespoon = 12,5 or 15 ml

If you're referring to the system of weights and measures in the US then I prefer to see it as being consistent. A furlong has always been a furlong, a gallon a gallon and this allows easy comparisons to the historical record. Canada muddled along with a mixture of US and Imperial, now uses a mixture of US and Imperial while flirting with metric and will, I think, eventually drop the metric as being too mathematically difficult for everyday use, standardising on US units. I do realise that Canadians see their 455g slabs of butter as being as important a feature of their national identity as their Guess Who records but it's not much of an identity and, in time, they'll see sense and go for ease of use.

That's just silly. The tablespoon can't readily be compared to the various metric measures around the world, but it doesn't matter; no one is going to get a spectrowhatsitmeter so as to be able to measure .79 mil of something when they can just stick the spoon in it and slosh it into the pot.

It is indeed.

But then there's no ISO standard for any of these silly measurements. Even if there was, the Mericans would do it different..

Stick to metric. It works (and you don't need to work in 12s or 16s or 14s or whatever).

I'll have Celsius, by the way.

No they won't.

Schoolchildren don't learn about US units, except pounds for weighing people, but even that's diminishing.

I will gladly acknowledge that the mental arithmetic of working in base 12 (feet and inches, shillings and pence) or base 16 (ounces and pounds) is much easier than working in base 10. However, "kids today" don't see the need to develop mental arithmetic abilities because everyone has a calculator on their phone. Calculations in base 10 are simpler to process when working with decimal rather than vulgar fractions. Hell, shop assistants no longer need to be able to make change in their heads, because the till does it for them, on the increasingly rare occasions that people pay for stuff with actual cash.

Much as I might disagree with that lack of need (the ability to manipulate numbers without relying on a calculator is fundamentally valuable to a variety of other life skills, IMO, but that's another conversation entirely), there's not much I, you, or anyone else can do to change it. Canada will never "revert" to US customary measures in areas where they are not used today - although there are still plenty of areas where they are used and will likely remain so, plumbing and building supplies being the most obvious.

Base 10 is of little help when dealing with metric measures. If we take withabix's metric tablespoon and suppose a recipe calls for 15mil (leaving aside for the moment that it'll likely call for 14.79) and we have a metric package, containing 455g, we can divide by 10 until the cows come home without getting near to 15g (even assuming gs are the same as mils). Using base 10 always means dealing with odd numbers and multiple decimal places. That's fine in a laboratory but really not helpful if what you want is just to shove about the right amount of dewormer into a 1300lb animal.

Thanks for that tip!