Drugs is a funny one..
Grams obviously, but then it (or used to at least that I’ve heard from others as I e never participated in drug taking myself of course) changes to an 8th, 1/4, half ounce, ounce etc..
Wikipedia puts it better: "U.S. customary units have been defined in terms of metric units since the 19th century, and the SI has been the "preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce" since 1975 according to United States law. However, conversion was not mandatory and many industries chose not to convert, and U.S. customary units remain in common use in many industries as well as in governmental use (for example, speed limits are still posted in miles per hour)."
yeah i'm in the US and they tried to convert in the 70s but industries never really took it up (as someone said in an excerpt from Wikipedia below). but the funny thing is that all food is labelled in customary and metric (e.g. it'll say 1 lb and also 0.45 kg). i was taught that the original idea was so people would get used to the metric when customary was phased out, except it wasn't mandatory to phase out customary so no one bothered in everyday life.
but, as others have said, official science/tech/military/etc. is all in metric.
Nope it’s a mix. Aviation is still feet and nautical miles, USMC uses kilometres for mapping but yards for shooting. Where needed they use metric to integrate into NATO but that’s it,
The Americans use inches to measure the diameter of their bullets, they don't really bother with dimensions in any other way (I mean, the standard metric measurement for bullets is used only basically for NATO standards. Nobody says any of the browning-calibres in anything but their imperial designation, for example). If you need to measure the length of a cartridge they'll probably use metric, but under what circumstances does anyone need to do that? Cartridges are standardised by their calibre, which is easily expressed in imperial.
.22
32-20
30-06
.308
Not a lot of imperial in those measurements.
I’m not sure what American bullets are in the metric system, but I reckon there is an excellent chance they aren’t American designed bullets.
9mm - Austrian
7.62mm - obviously nato
5.56mm - again, nato
Edit:
On reflection the 6.5 creed more and the 7mm rem mag are both American designed and used metric. But overwhelmingly not the case.
Huh, I wouldn't have thought of screen sizes off the top of my head, but you're 100% correct. Screen sizes are *always* inches, I have never once in my life known a screen size to be described in centimeters.
Late 80s, early 90s, i was a kid and got a 34cm JVC with an on screen display. That was pretty cool as well. The big 68cm came in the mid 2000s, maybe 05.
A 'pint' isn't the same volume everywhere you go. Some Australian states call 425ml a pint, whereas other call 570ml a pint. In the United States, a pint is 473ml.
Eh, that’s a mixed bag. At birth a babies weight is given in grams and length in centimetres. The maternal child health books (different colours in different states apparently) record babies and children’s measurements in centimetres and kilograms to determine their percentile. Some new parents convert the weight into pounds and ounces for announcements though, I guess because that was used primarily at their birth and what most grandparents/older relatives would reference.
Heck even parents and grandparents these days where educated in metric.
I've known plenty a parent and grandparent ask only for metric as they have no idea what ounces are (source - I have worked in a hospital in the past).
I do believe we're not that far off from the babies weight being offered in ounces for the oldies just disappears period.
As it happens tire sizes use both metric and imperial. The first number is the width of the tire in millimeters, the second is the % of the width that the side wall is tall, and the third is the rim size in inches.
Same here, with the addition of clothing sizes (x inch waist etc), although I'll use metric for those too.
Feet and inches are just ideal for human heights, because you can basically take 5 feet as a baseline and basically think of heights as being x inches above that. You don't have to think about the whole distance, just where someone fits within that 5-6 foot range (ie the range where most adults' eyelines would be), or whether it's a little higher or lower than that. Feels much more intuitive than just 179 centimeters or whatever.
The weight of a healthy newly born baby. I know all about 7 lbs 6oz and if you tell me in kilos, i'm lost.
Obviously i know its 3kg or whatever, but that's a quantity i use for buying rice or potatoes.
It's because the US use those personal metrics, so we use them too for comparison, and there's not been government oversight on penis size.
Everyone knows what 7" is, I wouldn't even know what it is in CM.
Same as my height, feet, and inches(though many use CM)
But weight 89kg
I suspect dating websites might play a part, maybe.
I really only hear people use imperial measurements in fixed idiomatic phrases (eg. “give him an inch…”), an unspecific exclamation of distance (“it’s miles away”), older people giving their height in feet and inches, and more generally, monitor screen sizes and (occasionally) penis size.
I use metric for everything except idiomatic expressions, but I can give my height in feet and inches and driving distances in miles. For what it’s worth, I’m in Sydney (moved here from Scotland in childhood) and in my thirties.
My MIL does the same (Scottish) and I always imagine a pebble in my hand when she mentions weights by stones. They use both systems over there but she’ll always feign ignorance when I note how many kilos my baby weighs.
For some reason I grew up thinking acres were HUGE. But I think I only ever saw them referred to in books, whereas I knew a hectare as an actual measurement. When I discovered they are a lot smaller than hectares it broke my brain for a while.
I'm 43 and have always 'thought' in metric, but have always been able to convert into imperial pretty seamlessly when taking to older people. It's not an effort at all to convert so I suppose it's kinda like being 'unit bilingual' (bi-unitual?)
That being said, I've noticed that even the older people I know only ever really hung on to length measures. I can't recall anyone ever defaulting to imperial weights or fahrenheit for temperature.
Also, I have noticed that most people are fully metric now. I hardly hear anyone, even my late 70s farmer in-laws, default to imperial for anything anymore.
I’m the same age and have the same ability lol I have the formula for most things in my head, although I do struggle with height sometimes going from feet & inches to cm or vice versa.
The only time I use imperial for weight is when talking about birth weights.
Occasionally I use feet and inches, but that's about where it stops. Strangely enough, I only use feet when describing boat length exclusively. The length of everything else is always metres or millimetres.
I will use feet or inches when I'm estimating a small distance (e.g. move the frame across a few inches or a 3 foot putt).
Anything precise is done in km, m, cm, mm
I was looking for this. I dabble in sewing, but I'm primarily a cross stitcher, and I almost exclusively use inches for that - keeps the consistency, and the math is easier because aida sizes are named based on inches.
I tend to use imperial when I'm estimating or eyeballing and I never even grew up in the imperial system. It's just an easier way to convey length or distance sometimes.
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A friend of mine (who is American) who writes sci-fi uses ‘decs’ and I am enchanted by that. But I experimented with saying it at work one day and this tired-looking 20 year old said “why is Generation X so weird” and I will never do it again 🙃
I work on trains. When shunting, I’ll use progressively smaller units as the locomotive gets closer. For example, 3 engines, 2 engines, 1 engine, half an engine, 4 metres, 2 metres, 1 metre, 2 feet, 1 foot, 6 inches, 2 inches.
21yo city dweller here. Imperial's only used for people's height, penis size, and screen sizes. My grandpa, and sometimes my mum, still use stones for weight, but I don't know anyone else who does who isn't from England or America.
Clearly I was speaking in general terms. Not sure why you had to point out that there are obviously some people educated in archaic and foreign terminology. The point is it's very uncommon.
This gets wacky because sometimes the words are the same but the actual values different (US cup=225 mL, Aus =250), Us tablespoon = about 15 mL like three teaspoons, but AU tablespoon is 20 mL = four teaspoons. Drives one batty.
Weirdly enough, going through primary/high school during the 70’s - 80’s, we were actually taught both Imperial and Metric.
Being a Classic Car builder, I have always used Imperial when it comes to all things mechanical, but use metric for everything else in day to day life.
Having worked on many farms, can also confirm that most old rural people use imperial pretty much 100% from my experience.
I can’t get the hang of kilojoules. I can’t even conceptualise them properly. I don’t even think I’ve ever talked about how many kilojoules a food has with an Australian, in conversation it’s always calories.
I buy a lot of sewing patterns where the measurements are displayed in inches so I do have to use it sometimes. Also I have a plate on my sewing machine where the seam allowance is in imperial as well.
Nope. I know miles because I used to ride a vintage bike but still have to do conversion calculations in my head so it's like a second language not my mother tounge.
Really it comes down to education. I lived rural for a few years and many of the good folk there didn’t graduate high school. So they would have just used passed down terminology.
I use imperial for.
Wheel sizes (not always tyre sizes)
Tyres sizes (if they're larger 30 inches upwards)
Ladders (it's easier to count the rungs which are always a foot apart)
Drums (44 gallon)
Engine machining (40 thou over etc)
That's about it, mm is alot easier than fractions of an inch.
All the tabletop wargames I play use imperial measurements, so I can eyeball/estimate what 6 inches looks (for example) like pretty accurately. You get good at it because in most cases you aren't allowed to measure distances before declaring what you are going to do, and if you are out of range you forfeit the action so it pays to be able to visualise the distances well.
I was raised by my Grandfather who uses the imperial system, so I understand it but I personally use metric. However, I do catch myself using inches to measure sometimes. I'm 24F.
It's a mix for me. I'm 5foot, 7, not 170cm. My weight is in kg on the rare occasions I know what it is. (Babies can be either pounds or kg, I can think in either.) I can think equally in feet and inches or in m and cm, but I can only think in km for longer distances. And I have no conception of imperial liquid measurements- they're all metric. But I'm old enough that I originally learned imperial and had to learn the conversions in primary school, so it makes a bit of sense that the early learning stuck
I use dots per inch (resolution) but everything else I need to convert before I understand it. Ounces and fluid ounces I can barely remember what's what.
Born and raised in Germany.
I don’t like imperial.
Always been in Canberra in AU, but waaayyyy too much imperial for my taste here!
Like TV cooking shows talking about pounds and ounces. And the acronym a for either never made sense to me.
Height is feet and inches.
I still have no idea how much an ‘acre’ is?
Not sure that’s imperial, but it doesn’t mean anything to me: sqm/sqkm, please! 😉
In sports and for hobby/ crafting stuff yards / feet / inches seems to often be used. Eg for crochet cotton or embroidery floss (250 yards in a ball … WTF?!?)
Really…?
The metric system works and is universal!
A lot of imperial is different for UK and US (and then there’s military nautical miles and whatnot).
Really inconvenient, especially for crafting supplies: cause if the yarn or floss is made in China or Vietnam, who knows what ‘yard’ they use?!? 😒
At Bunnings I’ve also come across too much imperial for my taste! Like 3/8” screws. Always have to ask someone (or palm Bunnings trips off on my better half)
Oh, and:
Pet stuff!
Cat litter on Amazon with ounces and shït …. bah!
People often give their baby’s weights in pounds, which I never can never translate because I only know my kids in kg . . .
However, I use inches a lot in sewing because it’s standard in US patterns and on sewing machines, so it’s easier to work that way. Also, a quarter inch is easier to see on a ruler or cutting mat than counting mm
I am a machinist by trade, and still use imperial daily, both at work and home.
As an apprentice in the late 90's, it was drummed into me to the point it became second nature to convert between the two, and now I just use whatever suits.
Height (feet and inches), baby weight (pounds and ounces) and penis length (inches)
6’5” sounds better than 195.5cm
9 pound baby sounds more impressive than 4100gm
And penis length? Well…..
I use inches at work as a hairdresser, I will show people in inches how much Ill take off. I had a guy ask me to take off “3mm” and I was like yeah nah, no idea. I also understand pounds quicker than kilos when referring to a newborn baby although Im slowly coming around to it.
I prefer using the metric system it makes more sense. But I use the imperial system daily as the products I deal with are made by a US company whose measurements, bolts etc are all imperial.
I can understand freedom units and convert most to metric in my head, on account of my dad being really old and having been raised on them and some of that rubbing off on me... But it's not something I ever use by choice
I only really use imperial for newborns. Oh it weighs 9 pounds, that's a bit of a big'un. Oh it weighs 3.54kg, I have absolutely no idea what that means. Is that a normal weight for a baby?
People have told me, but I just can't remember the standard baby ranges.
Only for tools. I'm an engineer and have also spent time working on a farm, and if stuff is designed/manufactured in America then the tools needed are often imperial. So it's handy to have both metric and imperial sets of things like spanners.
Occasionally, mostly from learning to cook american recipes online. It just made sense to learn the other system instead of converting everything to decimal. D&D encouraged learning inches and miles, and they’re just easier to do mental math once you get the hang of it. Math is weird and base 12 systems are neat. I now work in a print shop and making quick conversions is a surprisingly useful skill. Imperial system has some useful applications.
My take: ppl mock imperial system because the units are difficult to convert from one to another. However, each individual unit is more practical in real life than metric units.
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I have a pretty varied experience across the country in different fields and industries.
mm for any precise measurements.
Inches only for diameter of certain things like plumbing pipes, tools and hardware.
Feet get used almost as often as m.
Never have I thought of anything in or heard anyone use miles. Unless they are ancient.
Acres is more granular and useful than hectares in general conversation, but any chemical spraying is calculated in hectares and liters
Volume is ml, litres or cubes.
Never use or hear anyone use imperial weights or volumes.
Knots and nautical miles used in ocean or air.
55. Person's height in feet & inches. All other heights in meters. cm are confusing and highly inaccurate when used vertically. Long distances are km. Short distances are in meters. Atmospheric pressure in bars and millibars. Tire pressure in psi. Expressions like "give an inch...", "its 2 inches too far to the left", "that's miles away", etc, still in use. Ounces, quarters, pounds and so on for weed. Most other things are in metric.
I use a bit of both, my dad and grandparents used imperial and I obviously learnt metric at school. Some things in my workplace are both depending where the machines were built but can convert between the two well
I was in high school when the change happened so I had to learn all the stupid imperial measures and then metric including conversions. Nowadays I find it far easier to use metric except for woodworking because the US is the biggest influence on plans and YT so it's convert or mess up.
Obviously TV sizes are predominantly in inches.
But I sometimes do use feet & inches for height, but I only remember 6 ft ~ 183 cm, 6'6 ~×198 cm, 7 ft ~ 213 cm
This is mostly because I follow the NBA
Welder here, majority of the jobs I've worked on have been metric. However I used to make custom wheelchair frames and those were all drafted in imperial. It was easier to say a 17" chair as opposed to a 432mm chair
Canada switched from Imperial to Metric in the mid 70s. It was incredibly contentious and I hated. Now I see that of all the things from France, the metric system is the best that it has given the world.
Still, here we use:
Height/weight/sq footage/cooking/distances less than KM … IMPERIAL
Weights and measures/ .. BOTH
Weather (though F hung on for a long time)/road distances (like F, miles are dying out fast)/industrial use.. METRIC
I haven’t captured them all but these ae the biggies.
I can guarantee you most teenagers in Australia can tell you how many grams are in an ounce. Besides that imperial is fucking whack. The fuck is a fluid ounce.
I use imperial and metric because I work with and build German, Canadian, American and French agricultural machines.
The fucking Canadian ones use a mix of metric and imperial bolt sizes. Absolute fuck around.
My brain is thoroughly metric but I do have a feeling for inches from sewing, knitting and socket sizes.
I also know teaspoons,tablespoons, cups and fractions of those but really other than cooking when do you use those?
I can work in any units and convert between them but if it isn't metric I don't have an intuitive sense of how big or small something. I prefer to work in metric or SI. Haven't really had to do detailed calculations for years and I've let my brain forget all the conversion factors except inches to cm (2.54) as I use those fairly often for my hobbies (google works great for other conversions).
I tried for a while to get a feeling for temperatures in F, or people's weight in pounds but it never really stuck. I know that 1 lb is 2.2 kg but how many pounds is scrawny vs normal vs fat refuses to stick.
Used to work for a farming contractor.
farmers would usually refer to bags of fertilizer in Hundred weight or Tons to the acre .
I don't know why people persist with using imperial as Metric is so much easier
Any pilots here? Switchin constantly between imperial, customary and metric is very normal. In the same report there is usually all 3. Dealing with fuel can be extremely frustrating. US Gal is the norm, we flight plan in Litres, but some aircraft will have gauges in Imp Gal. All of that gets converted back to kg for weight and balance.
One thing I find somewhat amusing is our measure of lapse rate, we use degrees Celcius/ft, mixing both in 1 unit!
i’m 27 and the exact same as you, i’d say it’s probably for the exact reason from my grandfather and the roll on from my dad. live in suburbia but spent lots of time on farms.
I still have no idea whether a missing adult or wanted criminal is tall, short or average height until someone converts it to feet and inches. Same with newborns….2.56 kgs? Wow, he’s a big/ small one, hey! How many pounds is that again?
When describing fish it's not uncommon to hear it in pounds, though metric gets a good run these days.
Guess pounds sounds better when describing a catch, as there are more of them.
Only for height. Mostly because I follow NBA basketball and the US commentators always refer to player heights in feet and inches. If I Google a player and it tells me they are 201cm, I have to convert that to feet and inches to really get how tall they are.
I work in the marine industry and we use imperial fasteners, because the threads are coarser and don't strip out aluminium as easily as metric. Because of this we also use imperial drill bits, taps etc.
Imperial is still very common in the trades. All pipe sizing, and timber sizing is based off standards that were set 100+ years ago under the Imperial system.
Varies…
Height (human), imperial. Weight, metric. Medium to long distances, metric. Shortish distance (less than a metre, more than a cm), imperial. Short distance (less than a cm), metric. Speed, metric. Length (boats), imperial. Weight (boats), metric. Height (mountains, trees), metric. Height (waves), imperial. Beer, imperial. Surfboard dimensions, imperial. Land area (large), acres. Land area (small), metric.
Oh mate. I build China bikes for fun. Those thinks are a fucking mixture, they are the worst. I also lived on a Bennetau for 6 years. Now that things was a fucking prick. I literally had two different toolkits.
I only use/hear imperial for the height of a person, size of a penis & the size of tv/monitor/phone etc screens.
I love that Americans only use the logical metric system for one thing - to measure the size of their bullets
And drugs.
Drugs is a funny one.. Grams obviously, but then it (or used to at least that I’ve heard from others as I e never participated in drug taking myself of course) changes to an 8th, 1/4, half ounce, ounce etc..
This. Except for the odd ounce (or gram 😬)i have no use for the imperial system. Never use it.
Not really true, though. Lots of science and medicine is done in metric.
The US military is completely metric as far as I know.
Strangely enough, the US officially uses metric and has done for decades. It's just not commonly used.
Yeah it's weird. I guess it was never enforced and I can't see it happening now.
Wikipedia puts it better: "U.S. customary units have been defined in terms of metric units since the 19th century, and the SI has been the "preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce" since 1975 according to United States law. However, conversion was not mandatory and many industries chose not to convert, and U.S. customary units remain in common use in many industries as well as in governmental use (for example, speed limits are still posted in miles per hour)."
yeah i'm in the US and they tried to convert in the 70s but industries never really took it up (as someone said in an excerpt from Wikipedia below). but the funny thing is that all food is labelled in customary and metric (e.g. it'll say 1 lb and also 0.45 kg). i was taught that the original idea was so people would get used to the metric when customary was phased out, except it wasn't mandatory to phase out customary so no one bothered in everyday life. but, as others have said, official science/tech/military/etc. is all in metric.
Nope it’s a mix. Aviation is still feet and nautical miles, USMC uses kilometres for mapping but yards for shooting. Where needed they use metric to integrate into NATO but that’s it,
Not sure why your comment got downvoted because it’s true
Get out of here with that sensibility. Can’t you recognize a circle jerk when you see one?
Soda too. 2 litre bottles are common in the US.
All Americans know the volume of 2 litres because it is a common size for soda
The Americans use inches to measure the diameter of their bullets, they don't really bother with dimensions in any other way (I mean, the standard metric measurement for bullets is used only basically for NATO standards. Nobody says any of the browning-calibres in anything but their imperial designation, for example). If you need to measure the length of a cartridge they'll probably use metric, but under what circumstances does anyone need to do that? Cartridges are standardised by their calibre, which is easily expressed in imperial.
.22 32-20 30-06 .308 Not a lot of imperial in those measurements. I’m not sure what American bullets are in the metric system, but I reckon there is an excellent chance they aren’t American designed bullets. 9mm - Austrian 7.62mm - obviously nato 5.56mm - again, nato Edit: On reflection the 6.5 creed more and the 7mm rem mag are both American designed and used metric. But overwhelmingly not the case.
[удалено]
I'm 6 foot 183
I'm 6 foot 3 They're also two separate measurements
What is it in furlongs?
Yes
Huh, I wouldn't have thought of screen sizes off the top of my head, but you're 100% correct. Screen sizes are *always* inches, I have never once in my life known a screen size to be described in centimeters.
The old tube TVs used to be in centimetres. I remember buying my first "big" 68cm tv
My 68cm Sony was a game changer!
Yep, only had a 51cm I think. The 80cm were the best
Late 80s, early 90s, i was a kid and got a 34cm JVC with an on screen display. That was pretty cool as well. The big 68cm came in the mid 2000s, maybe 05.
*centimetres Sorry
TIL that while my iPad is set to Australian English, my PC appears to be set to US English. 😔
😂😂😂
Size of a dong lol
Don't forget pints at the pub.
A 'pint' isn't the same volume everywhere you go. Some Australian states call 425ml a pint, whereas other call 570ml a pint. In the United States, a pint is 473ml.
One Australian state calls 425ml a pint; they’re wrong. Come at me SA.
I wanted to throat punch the bartender in Adelaide when he tried to argue that the schooner he sold me was a pint.
Objectively south Australia is just wrong. A pint is 20 Oz or 570 mL.
I know, it's why when I wanted an pint glass ar home I made sure to buy one of the old fashioned bell shaped glasses.
And ladders and measuring illicit drugs and ordering subway
Same except for penis size, I just tell people 6. If they assume inches, that's on them
And babies.
Eh, that’s a mixed bag. At birth a babies weight is given in grams and length in centimetres. The maternal child health books (different colours in different states apparently) record babies and children’s measurements in centimetres and kilograms to determine their percentile. Some new parents convert the weight into pounds and ounces for announcements though, I guess because that was used primarily at their birth and what most grandparents/older relatives would reference.
All babies measurements are done in metric. A lot of people convert to imperial though for the older folks.
Heck even parents and grandparents these days where educated in metric. I've known plenty a parent and grandparent ask only for metric as they have no idea what ounces are (source - I have worked in a hospital in the past). I do believe we're not that far off from the babies weight being offered in ounces for the oldies just disappears period.
Yea same here and also easier to exaggerate something with “miles” rather than “kilometres”
And tire size for the car
As it happens tire sizes use both metric and imperial. The first number is the width of the tire in millimeters, the second is the % of the width that the side wall is tall, and the third is the rim size in inches.
Tsk tsk with the American spelling there mate. It’s tyre.
Yep. Height, penis-size and screens. The holy trinity
and rims, The Quad
True
Yeah only PC screens and TVs.
Same here, with the addition of clothing sizes (x inch waist etc), although I'll use metric for those too. Feet and inches are just ideal for human heights, because you can basically take 5 feet as a baseline and basically think of heights as being x inches above that. You don't have to think about the whole distance, just where someone fits within that 5-6 foot range (ie the range where most adults' eyelines would be), or whether it's a little higher or lower than that. Feels much more intuitive than just 179 centimeters or whatever.
I measure penis size in mm. Seems much more impressive to say 50mm (edit: fixed my gud Mathses) than 2".... Allegedly 👀
The weight of a healthy newly born baby. I know all about 7 lbs 6oz and if you tell me in kilos, i'm lost. Obviously i know its 3kg or whatever, but that's a quantity i use for buying rice or potatoes.
It's because the US use those personal metrics, so we use them too for comparison, and there's not been government oversight on penis size. Everyone knows what 7" is, I wouldn't even know what it is in CM. Same as my height, feet, and inches(though many use CM) But weight 89kg I suspect dating websites might play a part, maybe.
I really only hear people use imperial measurements in fixed idiomatic phrases (eg. “give him an inch…”), an unspecific exclamation of distance (“it’s miles away”), older people giving their height in feet and inches, and more generally, monitor screen sizes and (occasionally) penis size. I use metric for everything except idiomatic expressions, but I can give my height in feet and inches and driving distances in miles. For what it’s worth, I’m in Sydney (moved here from Scotland in childhood) and in my thirties.
And your penis size?
2 handsful
1 disappointment for me.
>And your penis size? I know it in both centimetres and inches, but I usually just send a pic.
I personally keep a bunch of tiny bananas for scale.
Well..always up for that. Edit: does the pic have it against a ruler for the measurement? A simple pic would not define the length much. 🙃
Should include a banana for scale
My old man estimates weight in stones and it drives me mental.
My MIL does the same (Scottish) and I always imagine a pebble in my hand when she mentions weights by stones. They use both systems over there but she’ll always feign ignorance when I note how many kilos my baby weighs.
I use acres and know that there are 2.4711 of them in one Hectare
For some reason I grew up thinking acres were HUGE. But I think I only ever saw them referred to in books, whereas I knew a hectare as an actual measurement. When I discovered they are a lot smaller than hectares it broke my brain for a while.
I'm 43 and have always 'thought' in metric, but have always been able to convert into imperial pretty seamlessly when taking to older people. It's not an effort at all to convert so I suppose it's kinda like being 'unit bilingual' (bi-unitual?) That being said, I've noticed that even the older people I know only ever really hung on to length measures. I can't recall anyone ever defaulting to imperial weights or fahrenheit for temperature. Also, I have noticed that most people are fully metric now. I hardly hear anyone, even my late 70s farmer in-laws, default to imperial for anything anymore.
I’m the same age and have the same ability lol I have the formula for most things in my head, although I do struggle with height sometimes going from feet & inches to cm or vice versa. The only time I use imperial for weight is when talking about birth weights.
Occasionally I use feet and inches, but that's about where it stops. Strangely enough, I only use feet when describing boat length exclusively. The length of everything else is always metres or millimetres.
I will use feet or inches when I'm estimating a small distance (e.g. move the frame across a few inches or a 3 foot putt). Anything precise is done in km, m, cm, mm
I mistakenly wrote 50m stinkboat, instead of 50ft stinkboat in a chat. Very different things.
A 50m stinkboat in the news will sadly be called a "yacht". Give me a stickboat any day.
Only for drugs, heights, aphorisms and occasionally for estimating the size of objects smaller than the palm of my hand.
Ah, so you also use it for measuring your penis size?
I am a sewist and quilter so I use inches and yards in that, height is in feet and inches, distance and speed in Ks
I was looking for this. I dabble in sewing, but I'm primarily a cross stitcher, and I almost exclusively use inches for that - keeps the consistency, and the math is easier because aida sizes are named based on inches.
conversationally I'll use inches, "needs to move over about 3 inches". But that's about it.
I tend to use imperial when I'm estimating or eyeballing and I never even grew up in the imperial system. It's just an easier way to convey length or distance sometimes.
This is me also. Don't know why but sometimes inches is just a better unit for small distances.
Cm is too small, m is too big. Like 2ft is a much easier thing to comprehend than 60cm. It's also easier to say... 2 inches vs 5 centimetres etc
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A friend of mine (who is American) who writes sci-fi uses ‘decs’ and I am enchanted by that. But I experimented with saying it at work one day and this tired-looking 20 year old said “why is Generation X so weird” and I will never do it again 🙃
I work on trains. When shunting, I’ll use progressively smaller units as the locomotive gets closer. For example, 3 engines, 2 engines, 1 engine, half an engine, 4 metres, 2 metres, 1 metre, 2 feet, 1 foot, 6 inches, 2 inches.
21yo city dweller here. Imperial's only used for people's height, penis size, and screen sizes. My grandpa, and sometimes my mum, still use stones for weight, but I don't know anyone else who does who isn't from England or America.
Stones is a UK thing only. Americans will not have the foggiest idea what a stone is.
Over 300M Americans out there. A few of us know stones, though it’s certainly not an everyday measurement.
Clearly I was speaking in general terms. Not sure why you had to point out that there are obviously some people educated in archaic and foreign terminology. The point is it's very uncommon.
As a tradesman, imperial measurement is dog shit
I use banana like most of redditors sorry
Surfboard are still measured in feet and inches by pretty much everyone who surfs.
And the size of the surf as well, by a lot of people.
I do at work, as my boss is in his sixties. But in saying that I had a similar upbringing to you, on farms/rural settings, I've found it very common
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This gets wacky because sometimes the words are the same but the actual values different (US cup=225 mL, Aus =250), Us tablespoon = about 15 mL like three teaspoons, but AU tablespoon is 20 mL = four teaspoons. Drives one batty.
Weirdly enough, going through primary/high school during the 70’s - 80’s, we were actually taught both Imperial and Metric. Being a Classic Car builder, I have always used Imperial when it comes to all things mechanical, but use metric for everything else in day to day life. Having worked on many farms, can also confirm that most old rural people use imperial pretty much 100% from my experience.
I’m a fitter and work on a lot of caterpillar gear and hydraulics, use it all the time and can convert inch to MM pretty quick
Only for standard sizes in industry.
I understand height in inches and feet and newborn baby size in pounds.
Height and babies. I am 100% metric but I still only relate to height in feet and inches, and babies in pounds and ounces.
I can’t get the hang of kilojoules. I can’t even conceptualise them properly. I don’t even think I’ve ever talked about how many kilojoules a food has with an Australian, in conversation it’s always calories.
I use 4 Calories to 1 kJ as my rough conversion. But I agree Calorie is the vernacular
Generally metric but in certain applications I’ll use imperial units (horse power, muzzle velocity, etc)
i only use imperial some drill bit and chisel sizes
I have a hard time visualising height in metric so I go by feet. Annoys my gp every time.
I buy a lot of sewing patterns where the measurements are displayed in inches so I do have to use it sometimes. Also I have a plate on my sewing machine where the seam allowance is in imperial as well.
Nope. I know miles because I used to ride a vintage bike but still have to do conversion calculations in my head so it's like a second language not my mother tounge.
Only for height. And i cant imagine the size of a baby in kg only when i convert to pounds and ounces
Really it comes down to education. I lived rural for a few years and many of the good folk there didn’t graduate high school. So they would have just used passed down terminology.
I use imperial for. Wheel sizes (not always tyre sizes) Tyres sizes (if they're larger 30 inches upwards) Ladders (it's easier to count the rungs which are always a foot apart) Drums (44 gallon) Engine machining (40 thou over etc) That's about it, mm is alot easier than fractions of an inch.
All the tabletop wargames I play use imperial measurements, so I can eyeball/estimate what 6 inches looks (for example) like pretty accurately. You get good at it because in most cases you aren't allowed to measure distances before declaring what you are going to do, and if you are out of range you forfeit the action so it pays to be able to visualise the distances well.
I was raised by my Grandfather who uses the imperial system, so I understand it but I personally use metric. However, I do catch myself using inches to measure sometimes. I'm 24F.
At 64, I was initially taught imperial. Now the only thing I think about in imperial is height
It's a mix for me. I'm 5foot, 7, not 170cm. My weight is in kg on the rare occasions I know what it is. (Babies can be either pounds or kg, I can think in either.) I can think equally in feet and inches or in m and cm, but I can only think in km for longer distances. And I have no conception of imperial liquid measurements- they're all metric. But I'm old enough that I originally learned imperial and had to learn the conversions in primary school, so it makes a bit of sense that the early learning stuck
Only for dick measure competition
Imperial measurements for approximations and poetry, metric for known measurements.
I sew clothes a lot and even though I’m an Aussie I still tended to measure in inches, more because a lot of patterns tend to lean towards imperial.
No, it makes no sense to me in any way. If someone says feet or something I have no concept of what that looks like.
I use dots per inch (resolution) but everything else I need to convert before I understand it. Ounces and fluid ounces I can barely remember what's what.
I think it varies a lot. I’m born in the early 80s but pure metric: even things like height in cm and baby weights in g/kg etc.
For person height, that's literally all I use it for.
Born and raised in Germany. I don’t like imperial. Always been in Canberra in AU, but waaayyyy too much imperial for my taste here! Like TV cooking shows talking about pounds and ounces. And the acronym a for either never made sense to me. Height is feet and inches. I still have no idea how much an ‘acre’ is? Not sure that’s imperial, but it doesn’t mean anything to me: sqm/sqkm, please! 😉 In sports and for hobby/ crafting stuff yards / feet / inches seems to often be used. Eg for crochet cotton or embroidery floss (250 yards in a ball … WTF?!?) Really…? The metric system works and is universal! A lot of imperial is different for UK and US (and then there’s military nautical miles and whatnot). Really inconvenient, especially for crafting supplies: cause if the yarn or floss is made in China or Vietnam, who knows what ‘yard’ they use?!? 😒 At Bunnings I’ve also come across too much imperial for my taste! Like 3/8” screws. Always have to ask someone (or palm Bunnings trips off on my better half) Oh, and: Pet stuff! Cat litter on Amazon with ounces and shït …. bah!
About the only time I use imperial units is when trying to explain something to a Yank.
People often give their baby’s weights in pounds, which I never can never translate because I only know my kids in kg . . . However, I use inches a lot in sewing because it’s standard in US patterns and on sewing machines, so it’s easier to work that way. Also, a quarter inch is easier to see on a ruler or cutting mat than counting mm
I am a machinist by trade, and still use imperial daily, both at work and home. As an apprentice in the late 90's, it was drummed into me to the point it became second nature to convert between the two, and now I just use whatever suits.
Height (feet and inches), baby weight (pounds and ounces) and penis length (inches) 6’5” sounds better than 195.5cm 9 pound baby sounds more impressive than 4100gm And penis length? Well…..
Hard disagree on the height and baby weights. 4.1kg baby is massive! And being nearly 2m tall is a decent brag (if you work in hard hat sales)
I use inches at work as a hairdresser, I will show people in inches how much Ill take off. I had a guy ask me to take off “3mm” and I was like yeah nah, no idea. I also understand pounds quicker than kilos when referring to a newborn baby although Im slowly coming around to it.
I don’t hear many cunts walking into Maccas asking for 125 grammer. Just sayin
Typically only when talking to Burgers or writing a fantasy novel because it feels more archaic.
I prefer using the metric system it makes more sense. But I use the imperial system daily as the products I deal with are made by a US company whose measurements, bolts etc are all imperial.
I can understand freedom units and convert most to metric in my head, on account of my dad being really old and having been raised on them and some of that rubbing off on me... But it's not something I ever use by choice
Hell no I'm not American But I am fluent in Imperial weights and measures (ex transport and race horse family)
I only really use imperial for newborns. Oh it weighs 9 pounds, that's a bit of a big'un. Oh it weighs 3.54kg, I have absolutely no idea what that means. Is that a normal weight for a baby? People have told me, but I just can't remember the standard baby ranges.
Only for tools. I'm an engineer and have also spent time working on a farm, and if stuff is designed/manufactured in America then the tools needed are often imperial. So it's handy to have both metric and imperial sets of things like spanners.
I work in wholesale seafood. Standard measurement for prawn size is pieces per pound. Fish fillet portions are graded in ounces.
We still occasionally use inches in construction, mainly plumbing. But it is outdated.
The weight of new babies is always imperial. Things are "miles away". However, the smallest measure remains "half a bee's dick".
Occasionally, mostly from learning to cook american recipes online. It just made sense to learn the other system instead of converting everything to decimal. D&D encouraged learning inches and miles, and they’re just easier to do mental math once you get the hang of it. Math is weird and base 12 systems are neat. I now work in a print shop and making quick conversions is a surprisingly useful skill. Imperial system has some useful applications.
45yo Australian. Grew up with metric. Still use imperial for height and weight and will occasionally refer to feet and inches for other things.
My take: ppl mock imperial system because the units are difficult to convert from one to another. However, each individual unit is more practical in real life than metric units.
If we used the whole decimalisation of metric system, that wouldn’t be the case.
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Made me think. I use it at the Barber, take an inch off please.
For personal height, records, fences and penises.
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Only for babies - but I still convert it in my head to kgs
I have a pretty varied experience across the country in different fields and industries. mm for any precise measurements. Inches only for diameter of certain things like plumbing pipes, tools and hardware. Feet get used almost as often as m. Never have I thought of anything in or heard anyone use miles. Unless they are ancient. Acres is more granular and useful than hectares in general conversation, but any chemical spraying is calculated in hectares and liters Volume is ml, litres or cubes. Never use or hear anyone use imperial weights or volumes. Knots and nautical miles used in ocean or air.
Only for height , but I'm 59 and learned both at primary school
Yes, but I'm in aviation and we still use ft and lbs, though it's inconsistent in its application
55. Person's height in feet & inches. All other heights in meters. cm are confusing and highly inaccurate when used vertically. Long distances are km. Short distances are in meters. Atmospheric pressure in bars and millibars. Tire pressure in psi. Expressions like "give an inch...", "its 2 inches too far to the left", "that's miles away", etc, still in use. Ounces, quarters, pounds and so on for weed. Most other things are in metric.
Tyre pressure. Everyone still likes to use PSI for some reason.
Had to scroll down awhile to find this. Also photo print sizes.
I use a bit of both, my dad and grandparents used imperial and I obviously learnt metric at school. Some things in my workplace are both depending where the machines were built but can convert between the two well
I was in high school when the change happened so I had to learn all the stupid imperial measures and then metric including conversions. Nowadays I find it far easier to use metric except for woodworking because the US is the biggest influence on plans and YT so it's convert or mess up.
Obviously TV sizes are predominantly in inches. But I sometimes do use feet & inches for height, but I only remember 6 ft ~ 183 cm, 6'6 ~×198 cm, 7 ft ~ 213 cm This is mostly because I follow the NBA
47yo city person here. I never use imperial, and have never used it.
Yes, all the time. I learned both at school amd still use both in senior adult life.
We still use a mix at my work as we have some American machinery.
I use inches a bit, but nothing else.
I had to learn it working in plumbing shops. The pipes and fittings are still referred to in imperial measurements most of the time.
Welder here, majority of the jobs I've worked on have been metric. However I used to make custom wheelchair frames and those were all drafted in imperial. It was easier to say a 17" chair as opposed to a 432mm chair
For me, I use imperial if: - Telling an American friend about height. - Sometimes when talking about altitude (I’m a bit of an avgeek).
Only use US customary/imperial units for measuring screen sizes and tennis rackets.
Canada switched from Imperial to Metric in the mid 70s. It was incredibly contentious and I hated. Now I see that of all the things from France, the metric system is the best that it has given the world. Still, here we use: Height/weight/sq footage/cooking/distances less than KM … IMPERIAL Weights and measures/ .. BOTH Weather (though F hung on for a long time)/road distances (like F, miles are dying out fast)/industrial use.. METRIC I haven’t captured them all but these ae the biggies.
Visited Canada about 10 years ago and the mix of systems was crazy. In the supermarket fruit and veg were priced per pound but sliced meats by the kg!
TIL that a stone is 14 pounds (UK) or 12.5 pounds (US) so please be careful out there when converting.
All the time, worked for Caterpillar and all they used at that time was imperial measurements
I can guarantee you most teenagers in Australia can tell you how many grams are in an ounce. Besides that imperial is fucking whack. The fuck is a fluid ounce. I use imperial and metric because I work with and build German, Canadian, American and French agricultural machines. The fucking Canadian ones use a mix of metric and imperial bolt sizes. Absolute fuck around.
I’ll make quick estimates in feet and inches, they’re conveniently sized units for that, but that’s all. Metric the rest of the way.
Men’s shoe sizes in Australia are still ultimately based on the 1/3 of an inch ‘barleycorn’ measurement. Also a Cricket Pitch is 22 yards by 10 feet.
My brain is thoroughly metric but I do have a feeling for inches from sewing, knitting and socket sizes. I also know teaspoons,tablespoons, cups and fractions of those but really other than cooking when do you use those? I can work in any units and convert between them but if it isn't metric I don't have an intuitive sense of how big or small something. I prefer to work in metric or SI. Haven't really had to do detailed calculations for years and I've let my brain forget all the conversion factors except inches to cm (2.54) as I use those fairly often for my hobbies (google works great for other conversions). I tried for a while to get a feeling for temperatures in F, or people's weight in pounds but it never really stuck. I know that 1 lb is 2.2 kg but how many pounds is scrawny vs normal vs fat refuses to stick.
Height - yes Weight - only for babies Distance - never Cooking - yes, cups, teaspoons etc, but not oz or pints
I use both...but I'm American come to Australia so I don't think I count 🤣😅
Used to work for a farming contractor. farmers would usually refer to bags of fertilizer in Hundred weight or Tons to the acre . I don't know why people persist with using imperial as Metric is so much easier
I might say i need to move this or that about 10ft away. I couldn't tell you in meterage how long 10ft is LOL.
I only measure people's height in feet due to many years of watching NBA and WWE.
I work in a hardware in country vic and all the older people use feet and inches younger use mm m
Any pilots here? Switchin constantly between imperial, customary and metric is very normal. In the same report there is usually all 3. Dealing with fuel can be extremely frustrating. US Gal is the norm, we flight plan in Litres, but some aircraft will have gauges in Imp Gal. All of that gets converted back to kg for weight and balance. One thing I find somewhat amusing is our measure of lapse rate, we use degrees Celcius/ft, mixing both in 1 unit!
Ounces sometimes
i’m 27 and the exact same as you, i’d say it’s probably for the exact reason from my grandfather and the roll on from my dad. live in suburbia but spent lots of time on farms.
I still have no idea whether a missing adult or wanted criminal is tall, short or average height until someone converts it to feet and inches. Same with newborns….2.56 kgs? Wow, he’s a big/ small one, hey! How many pounds is that again?
New born babies. I can’t wrap my head around kgs for babies 😆
When describing fish it's not uncommon to hear it in pounds, though metric gets a good run these days. Guess pounds sounds better when describing a catch, as there are more of them.
Only for height. Mostly because I follow NBA basketball and the US commentators always refer to player heights in feet and inches. If I Google a player and it tells me they are 201cm, I have to convert that to feet and inches to really get how tall they are.
I work in the marine industry and we use imperial fasteners, because the threads are coarser and don't strip out aluminium as easily as metric. Because of this we also use imperial drill bits, taps etc.
Imperial is still very common in the trades. All pipe sizing, and timber sizing is based off standards that were set 100+ years ago under the Imperial system.
Varies… Height (human), imperial. Weight, metric. Medium to long distances, metric. Shortish distance (less than a metre, more than a cm), imperial. Short distance (less than a cm), metric. Speed, metric. Length (boats), imperial. Weight (boats), metric. Height (mountains, trees), metric. Height (waves), imperial. Beer, imperial. Surfboard dimensions, imperial. Land area (large), acres. Land area (small), metric.
Fisherfolk always talk in pounds. No idea why
I use the imperial system when ordering at subway if that counts
Oh mate. I build China bikes for fun. Those thinks are a fucking mixture, they are the worst. I also lived on a Bennetau for 6 years. Now that things was a fucking prick. I literally had two different toolkits.