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Europeans, what is something that Americans have/do that makes no sense to you? (programming.dev)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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[–] 52 points 3 years ago (24 children)

Their US customary units. What even is a fluid ounce, and what is it doing in my drink?

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  • [–] 11 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    Come visit the UK. We have fluid ounces too, but only for baking. Your drink will be served by the millilitre, unless it's beer in a pub, or milk in a home, in which case it will be served by the pint.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago

    A shot? An eighth of a cup? Sixteenth of a pint? I mean, I get it. Metric is standard, but of all the units to pick on, the fluid ounce is probably one of our more reasonable measurements. We have acres of less-intuitive units.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (15 children)

    Flounces are the best part of US Customary units. It's all base 2/8/16, which is a hell of a lot more sensible than base 10 units.

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  • [–] 9 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    It’s all base 2/8/16, which is a hell of a lot more sensible than base 10 units.

    Debatable. I probably shouldn't restart the whole imperial vs metric debate, but I might just say that people who grow up with metric think exactly the opposite.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    I'll convert to metric once we convert to a dozenal number system. Ten is a terrible number to base our counting system on.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Ten is a terrible number to base our counting system on.

    Maybe when you are counting apples, but not when you are dealing with arbitrary amounts. Why else is our number system base 10?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Imperial sucks, and metric is better, but still +1 for dozenal. Anybody who isn't for it is either confused about the very concept of different bases (I've talked to plenty of those), or biased.

    I don't know why you dozenal advocates are being downvoted.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    You're serious? Why? I've genuinely never heard this stance before.

    Is it because they're powers of two and are therefore easier to halve, quarter, etc. for baking and cooking purposes?

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    Yeah this is why most old measurement systems used 4 8 12. 4 fingers to a palm, you don't count the thumb as a finger. Then 4 palms to arm, for a total of 16 fingers. At 12 arms into a bigger unit so you can count the joints on your hand

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (2 children)

    I can't tell if you're kidding. How do you keep track of four palms per arm?

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