Reply With QuoteWhen I am being precise I use metric units. When I am being vulgar I use imperial...
:)
Apologies for the rather odd thread title but I am a product of being raised in the 70's when both imperial and metric scales were commonly in use.
I still think in terms of both.
But my perceptions of temperature are a bit baffling, even to me. When temperatures are low, I think in terms of Celsius - ie I judge low temperatures as a few degrees above or below zero degrees Celsius. But when it comes to hot weather, I comprehend temperatures much more easily in Fahrenheit. ie 70 degrees is pleasantly warm, 90 is getting seriously hot.
I also tend to think of weight in stones and pounds, height in feet and inches, and distance/speed in miles per hour. But I don't think in yards, but rather in metres - if that makes sense. I also use kilograms for weight of objects, and never use hundredweights etc.
So I am constantly doing conversions in my head - not a problem as I am used to it and it makes sense to me.
Anyone else the same? Or got any imperial/metric quirks?
So clever my foot fell off.
When I am being precise I use metric units. When I am being vulgar I use imperial...
:)
distance in miles, speed in miles per hour, engines basically in miles per gallon (must be getting old).
beer in pints, balvenie in huge quantities.
weight is a complete mystery to me, both pounds or kilos are equally unfathomable.
as a late 60's child length (no sniggering at the back) meters or feet, inches or mm - no problemo.
temperature in centigrade - 'far in height' is 32 minus the something multiplied by something else - so 70 is friggin HOT in my book
Yep, as a 60s kid I use old money and new.
I measure in Cm or Mm but can't visualise more than a few cm before reverting to Ft and In and regularly mix and match from both.
I'm just about getting used to liquids in Ml but prefer Pints both in milk and beer obviously.
I use Centigrade for temps and have no idea about Fahrenheit.
Weights are all over the shop, and I regularly refer to a quarter of sweets to remember how many ounces in a pound, and therefore how many pounds in a stone.
One is 16, the other 14. You can't sensibly get quarters of 14 so it's obvious which is which.
See, bloody government meddling, they made us all bonkers !
For the nature of my work then feet and inches converted to millimeters and centimeters is no issue.Always judge temperature on degrees centigrade no matter cold or hot. The one I haven't figured out out is the gallon/litre conversion.
I would still like to know what I am paying for a gallon of petrol but I guess I have managed this long. And I still sleep at night so its no major concern.
Everything you said is exactly the same as what I do but I grew up in the 80s.Originally Posted by TheFlyingBanana
The other oddity is golf. I can judge distance in yards on a golf course so that I know which club to hit, but don't even think about yards in any other context. Golf is always measured in yards I suppose, but it seems funny to me.
I nearly always use use metric. For temperature always Celsius, Fahrenheit wouldn't cross my mind.
Use kilometres for "speed" measurement and distance. Always "measure" in metres / centimetres. Use kilos for all weight measurements.
Yet for body weight I use stones/lbs and for car economy I use miles per gallon.
4.54 litres per gallon fella.
I prefer imperial for length and distance , and small weights ( eg comestibles such as bags of flour and vegetables ) and metric for larger ones ( ie people and heavier objects ). People in particular are best measured in stone ; I have no idea how much they weigh in kilos ( or indeed pounds for that matter . another reason why I have no idea what Americans are on about ). Likewise , a persons height is also instinctively measured by feet and inches . Metric measures for a persons height are only used by aliens , the Passport Office and other agencies , like Alton Towers.
Imperial measurements have the advantage of being instinctively better to 'read' ( albeit with some notable exceptions ) , like an analogue watch face over a digital one for example.
I believe this is because they are, like us, closer to the Natural Order than their digital counterparts .
I also believe it was Cromwell who tried to introduce a digital calendar for about three years but miserably failed - we are inevitably tied to the Natural Cycles , even though we humans like to pretend we are not part of nature and are Superior Rational Beings and Masters of the All We Survey etc.
Regarding petrol ( I believe our somewhat geographically challenged relatives refer to it as 'gas', even though it is demonstrably very definitely a liquid at usable temperatures ) I still prefer to think of it in terms of gallons. Everyone in these isles , apart from a few Johnny Frenchmen , thinks of economy in MPG. Litres are purely for those who wish to profit from their fellow men by stealth , such as the Exchequer and people who buy their vegetable oil in bulk from Lidls specifically in order to evade from his relentless and insidious fiscal clasp.
Regarding temperature I prefer to think of it in words such as ' warm' and 'too hot ' etc rather than deigning to use either system of designated numerical evaluation . my experience of best etc is after all a *feeling* as opposed to a scientific experience .
Last edited by seikopath; 23rd July 2014 at 02:37.
The reason why you can still sleep at night is simply because you don't know how much a gallon of petrol is. When I was a lad it was about 60p a gallon. I believe we havnt been paying that amount for a litre since the 90s! I believe it is approximately 6 quid a gallon now. So thats what the Gulf War was about..
Post of the week
Hehe. We're so different from this point of view.
Distance in km, speed in kph, fuel consumption in l/100km.
Beer in ml (or litres depending on how drunk I want to get).
Weight in kg (or any other metric value).
Length in meters/cm/mm.
Temperature in Centigrade.
Everything in English, cry God for Harry!
Although being a similar age to you, Alex, I can do both systems and often mix them when needed.
My quirk is that I will measure stuff in whatever scale is closest to a notch on the tape measure, therefore it's not unusual for me to ask for a piece of wood 9" by 394mm (or whatever)
Agree about the temperature thing (being a certain age) and funnily enough was only discussing it the other day.
At low temperatures Celsius is easier for me to understand -1 etc but at higher temperatures Fahrenheit seems to take precedent.
Cheers,
Neil.
I was born in ’75, so a child of the 80’s I suppose. I only really remember being schooled in metric and in my job as a design engineer I’m very much metric, however, as most of you, I have some peculiarities, which I assume have just come from common usage or having no choice (road signs all in miles/mph for example). Distance, small distances, especially at work, it’s mm, but driving is miles/mph, kilometres just does not compute. Height of a person is feet/ins. Weight, very much kg/g, but weight of a person is in stone, wouldn’t know what that is in pounds like the yanks do, but the weight of a fish when fishing is pounds? Temperature for me is only Celsius, 0 is cold, 30 is hot, I have no idea what farrenheight is. Volume is also metric, so litres/ml for me all the way, apart from having a few 568mls down the pub
Brighty
That used to be the case for me until I bought a internal/external weather station that measures in Celsius so now usually that's how I think. Currently my living room is 25 and way, way too warm. It's 19 outside on the drive.
Stones and pounds are more closely related than people think. Measuring in stone usually gives you a remainder in pounds, so it's not that different from measuring in pounds only. 14 of them to a stone. It was simply missing from the list of government approved weights and measures following independence... although it's always tickled me that after such a show of resistance to interventionism, the newly American population should want a government to tell them how to measure stuff ;).
...but what do I know; I don't even like watches!
What is this metric you speak of?
(Born in '67, I was part of the "we're going metric" generation that ultimately flopped)
It didn't really flop though did it , thanks to legislation from the EU
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
The media in this country likes to sensationalise. So -6c sounds better than 21f and 80f sounds better than 26c.
Just over here. It does seem odd that we didn't follow through with the rest of the world. It just fizzled.
I remember in elementary school being drilled this is the way, but life continued in feet and Fahrenheit.
I have often spent my time between countries with different systems so am quite happy with both. most of the time. This nonsense about weighing humans in stones does my head in though - it is staggeringly stupid.
It amuses me that here we sell fuel in litres but count fuel eficiency in mpg. As well as speed whereas most other things are metric. very quirky.
I do car speeds in miles
cycle speeds in km
temp mainly in c, sometimes in f depending where i am
weight in both kg and lbs
so just as quirky!
At my advanced age (OK - mid 60s) whilst I have a bit of a feel for metric, I still think imperial. I know my weight and height in Imperial, but not metric, and can only relate to these. I still do my cycling etc. in imperial.
Worse, I still convert old LSD currency to new decimal - I was working in a bank in Darlington when that happened. My wife does not believe me when I say 10d of fish and four penneth of chips (6 new pence for those that want to know). And when very hard up drinking a pint of mild at 1 shilling, I penny (also 6 new pence).
I tend to talk metric but convert to imperial in my head.
Eddie
Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
I'm much the same as TFB on this, although being born in '54 and taking A levels in '72 meant that half my Physics questions were set in imperial (ft/lbs, btu, lbs/ft2) and had to be solved with the answers in metric which was ,then, still split between cgs and full SI. I'm sure that I've never got over that!
My college stuff was all metric, but until'78 some major civil eng contracts were still in both systems, or worse like the M4 Newport to Cardiff, designed in imperial and the drawings and geometry converted to metric. Nothing fitted!!!
Map of countries officially not using Metric systems:
Oddities?
Tyre sizes.
Although no trees were harmed during the creation of this post, a large number of electrons were greatly inconvenienced.
Drill bits, screws etc etc .
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
When I was alive I lived in a country with standard currency that operated with fractions and multiples of twelve, then a multiple of twenty, then twenty one.
Length was in fractions and multiples of twelve, then three, then one thousand seven hundred and sixty.
Weight was in fractions and multiples of sixteen, then one hundred and twelve, then twenty.
Temperature was divided into two hundred and twelve degrees but started at thirty two.
What could be simpler than that?
It's all very hobbity isn't it. I don't get the one with weight though? Surely there are 16 oz to the lb, then 14 lbs to the stone ?
I also note you have avoided any mention of rods, chains, furrows and furlongs et cet.
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
I also missed off the firkin/hogshead/pin stuff, horses in multiples of three of a base unit four (but only over 14 hands and one year old) and the system for precious metals that makes an ounce of feathers heavier than an ounce of gold, all because I thought I had proved my point with the simpler examples.
Not to forget jeroboams, methuselahs , Melchizedeks and balthazars etc!
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
Being born in 1968 I was pretty much always a metric baby but do most of my food shopping is in pounds and ounces. It's interesting that if you're shopping in Germany for fruit and veg below a kilo you will often order a Pfund or a halbes Pfund (the actual measure will obviously be 500g or 250g but translates as a pound or half pound) of this that or the other so it's not always simply a case that mainland Europe is purely decimal. I also love the way that the Austrians always use fractions so that a measure of wine is often an Viertel or Achtel rather than a dull 0.2l.
Last edited by Carlton-Browne; 24th July 2014 at 08:11. Reason: is added
In the Sotadic Zone, apparently.
Are you speaking from beyond the grave Unc?
Cheers,
Neil.
And all those old measurements that used to adorn the back cover of exercise books...
Cheers,
Neil.
I was also born in the late 60s, and the 80s were my formative years.
I grew up in a metric country, but am now living in the USA.
At first Fahrenheit seemed very foreign to me and I was always converting back to C. But now living somewhere with extreme temperatures, I actually prefer Fahrenheit.
>100 oF - f****ng hot
90-100 unpleasant
80-90 hot
70-80 pleasant
60-70 pack a light cotton sweater
50-60 slight nip in the air
40-50 chilly
30-40 cold
20-30 brrr
10-20 wear your winter woolies
0-10 do I have to go to work
-10 - 0 Yuk
-20 - -10 COLD
<-20 Stay home or have some good winter clothes.
For science and accuracy, Celcius can't be beat, but I like the groupings of the decades in the Fahrenheit system.
Just can't get my head around fluid ounces here in the US - I still go metric for volume and small weights.
you forgot the logarithms .... i did just about learn to use a slide rule before they were consigned to the dustbin of historyAnd all those old measurements that used to adorn the back cover of exercise books...
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
If only everything could be as logical as the measurement of time. Units of sixty, then sixty, then twenty four, then twenty eight, twenty nine, thirty, or thirty one, then twelve.
I've still got a boxed slide rule in the cupboard.
Cheers,
Neil.
I blame the TV weather presenters. They've perpetuated this for dramatic effect.
Being a child of the fifties I can use either but have a heavy leaning to Imperial. I find the system of farthings, ha'pennies, pennies, tanners, bobs, florins, half-dollars, 10/- notes and pound notes perfectly logical. based on the 240 to a pound system. Much as the avoirdupois is based on the dram, ounce, pound, stone, quarter, cwt and ton. Bushels and pecks are good too.
It's this new fangled decimal system that gets me. Have you seen how small a millimeter actually is? Useless for anything except measuring tiny things.
To be fair, 29 only comes into play occasionally. I think that you're trying to make it seem more complicated than it actually is!
Although no trees were harmed during the creation of this post, a large number of electrons were greatly inconvenienced.
What about the Cup measurement system for volume in cooking. WTF is that all about?
In the construction industry, most guys I know will refer to a 2m length of 4x2 without giving it a second thought.
As I was born in 1961 as such I was schooled in imperial units for my early years then a peculiar mixture of imperial and metric (depending on the subject and or teacher) for secondary eductaion. I also passed my 11 plus and had to learn Latin which I've never used since, my first job was as an apprentice monotype caster operator for a local newspaper who switched to offset printing 6 months before I gained my qualifications. My life seems to have been spent learning systems that fell by the wayside.
Do you fancy learning Cobol? Or Perl?As I was born in 1961 as such I was schooled in imperial units for my early years then a peculiar mixture of imperial and metric (depending on the subject and or teacher) for secondary eductaion. I also passed my 11 plus and had to learn Latin which I've never used since, my first job was as an apprentice monotype caster operator for a local newspaper who switched to offset printing 6 months before I gained my qualifications. My life seems to have been spent learning systems that fell by the wayside.
Last edited by markrlondon; 23rd July 2014 at 17:31.
I have a cobol self learning betamax tape Mark so I'm sorted thanks.
I can't really see a justification for trying to think in metric distance when mpg / mph / miles are so embedded in culture and the hive mind, however, judging temperature by anything other than zero degrees for the point water freezes and 100 degrees for the point water boils and everything else being "usually somewhere in between" (e.g. Men's aircon setting 20, women's aircon setting 40) is plain batcrap crazeballs IMHO.
Johnny.
Apparently some watches have slide rules?I've still got a boxed slide rule in the cupboard.
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
Indeed they do.Apparently some watches have slide rules?
Great old anachronistic watches.
Cheers,
Neil.
That is the cook's equivalent of the carpenter's system which is still confusing the non metric thinkers.
The carpenters used thumbs, hands and feet to measure as they worked in their workshop. Hobbyist cooks measure in cups and spoons in their kitchen. That was ok till fashion/consumerism introduced a bewildering variety of cup and spoon designs thus sizes...
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