#imperial system

[fishcat076]

Yeah About a Hug's Worth

Think about it: If a kid is trying to measure their mood or love with their arms, saying "I love you this much" or "more than this much" it's an actual unit of measurement! If someone says "my love for you is unfathomable" they're saying "my love for you is more than which an embrace can convey." Sailors literally talk by saying "yeah this square knot takes about six hugs of rope" The words "fathom" "unfathomable" "fathomless" all relate to hugs! We have been measuring length in hugs for 5 centuries! I think that's beautiful.

[victusinveritas]

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Never heard of A2, etc. We do have "letter & legal" sizes. The rest are basically specific measurements. As a librarian ordering labels for the printer, book pockets, etc., the choices were endless.

[phoenixyfriend]

The next time someone outside the US tries to Give Shit about not using metric, I'll just ask when they're transitioning out of a base 24/60 time measurement.

Get back to me when you have a ten-hour day and 100min hour.

Until then "but we've always used this, it would be so annoying to change over when we're all used to these seemingly unreasonable ratios, it feels natural to us," is a justifiable answer for continuing to use the Imperial system.

No you would not get to retroactively grow up with the time. Your people and government would have to manually adjust as fast as possible because... IDK aliens showed up and the rest of the galaxy thinks we're weird for not using base 10. The boomers will complain, the teachers will panic, and you will have to sink so much money into changeover for signage and computers across the world.

EDIT: I am FULLY AWARE of the transition from imperial to metric in places like England (incomplete though it may be).

This is not about people who lived through that transition, because those are not generally the people who are snobbish about it. The worst attitudes, in my experience, come from people who grew up on metric and view others as idiots for preferring something else.

The post is about how the argument that metric is Objectively Better is hypocritical if you aren't also willing to change the time system.

The argument is Stop Being Dicks.

[random-fun-polls]

which one do you find more intuitive?

imperial units (i'm american)

imperial units (i'm not american)

metric units (i'm american)

metric units (i'm not american)

*i'm aware that other places than the US use imperial units too, or at least do so for some things/use a mix of both/etc. still, i'm tryna see smth here..

[stabbydragon]

Someone has probably pointed this out before but in that car ride scene Aziraphale says “You can’t do 90 miles per hour in central London!”

WHY IS HE USING MILES HE’S BRITISH HE SHOULD SAY 144.84 KM

Edit: I have just been informed by several brits that you guys use miles for street signs, which is stupid. In Canada we use kilometres per hour. Then again, I measure my height in feet and my oven works in Fahrenheit so who am I to judge.

[therobotmonster]

Fun Fact! The US date system (M/D/Y) also goes smallest to largest!

It simply does so by the set size rather than by the unit of time.

12 possible months, 31 possible days, infinite possible years.

This is ultimately no less or more arbitrary than the other way of doing it.

[bameme]

"Car-sized" - Americans will seriously use anything but metric to measure the oversized drones hovering ominously in the skies of New Jersey of which the government denies all knowledge.

[villainessbian]

american weighing something: ooh, that's 15 pounds

american measuring liquid: hmm, that's gotta be 23 thrusts

american checking a distance: just about 50 facefucks

[jacobinbrothers]

Comment on the Metric System

[brazilspill]

*facepalm*

Why are Americans Like That.

[pengu1n-flyer]

I’ve always loved the idea that Peach is taller than average while Mario is shorter than average. 5’6” plumber falls in love with 6’0” princess. Then they meet 7’4” space princess, eventually. Mario and Daisy(5’5”) have short person get togethers where they plot to find out wtf the tall ones have been hiding on the top of shelves or cupboards.

[victusinveritas]

At only 4' 8" tall, Simone Biles' jump clears more than 7 feet 4 inches of air (1 Shaq plus a bit). Or, in library terms, she could jump over roughly 65 James Patterson books.

Americans will use anything but the metric system.

[anna-pineappel]

Curious: not sure if it’s because I’m Canadian writing fanfics, but does anyone else NOT write in American English and/or use metric system in their fics? (e.g. colour vs color; kms vs miles)

I definitely keep Canadian English spellings in my fics but I use what I call “Canadian” units for measurements: a weird mesh of imperial and metric systems (i.e. feet and inches for human heights, metres for lengths, etc. iykyk).

Reblog for sample size/curiosity!

[heidi891]

I find the discourse about Snape’s height (or any other character’s height) so confusing and hilarious. Like, what do you mean he’s 5'9''. What does it mean, I have no idea. I’ve heard that 6' is tall. Am I even writing it correctly?

OK, Google to the rescue! So apparently 6' is almost 183 cm. But I’m not going to google every single value I see on Tumblr…

However, I can say with confidence that Snape is 178 cm tall 😎

[eden-herbert]

As someone from the USA yall really have a hard time referring to my alters as feet, like honestly its getting ridiculous, I don't give a single fuck if your a metric system, it is downright disrespectful to assume im metrigenic. I refer to yall as meters and you can't return the favor by a foot or two?