this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2024
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[–] [email protected] 26 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But the UK still uses imperial. I remember playing euro truck sim and being annoyed that the road signs don't match the speed limit shown in the GPS. I first thought this was a bug. Then I remembered that I was in UK and not the Netherlands where I picked up the delivery.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (7 children)

UK is a conplete chaos between the two. You buy liters of milk but gallons of gas. Speeds are in miles per hour. Close distances are in meters, longer ones in miles. I have seen weight both in grams and in pounds. And then the currency is even called pound.

"How many pounds does one pound of apples cost, sir?"

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It's so much worse than anyone outside of the UK can imagine. Milk and beer come in pints but water and wine come in litres (actually, wine and liquor sometimes comes in centilitres which is actually worse) . Most fuel pumps show you the quantity in litres but we still measure speed in miles per hour and efficiency in miles per gallon.

I know my own weight in kilos but my height in feet. When I go to the barbers I ask for a one mill on the sides and an inch off the top. I try and run a 5k every now and again but could never do a marathon.

Then there's the generation split. I'm of that weird generation where I'm caught in the middle of older teachers knowing imperial better but trying to teach metric in school.

My parents always used imperial so I learned some of that early on but then learned metric in school. Went to engineering college where they taught me all the more advanced metric before going to work at a company that almost exclusively uses imperial (thank you American aerospace for that one)

Shit, even our kettles can't seem to decide on imperial cups or just guessing how big the average mug is. My kettle has both cups and millilitre gradiations on it.

And don't get me started on single, double, king and queen beds! Turns out there's a euro standard and they're not the same as our standard! You can buy a double sheet that's closer to fitting a queen size bed!

Idek what's going on at this point lol

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

how many pounds of gas does it take to drive 1 kilofoot?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

And they use stone (14 pounds) to measure body weight.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Holy shit. I'm gladdened to learn that someone may be more fucked than us. Today is a first: I am no longer from the most shamed people.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Canada is a bit of a mess too, although different. We never really use miles, but we do use feet and inches and pounds pretty regularly. The construction industry is a real mess in particular because so many things are measured in either imperial or metric units

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Nah, you buy petrol in litres, but mileage is calculated in miles per gallon. Which is much worse

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

even better is measuring shit in stone.

no one knows what that means outside of blighty mate, no one's ever fucking heard of stone. it's so hilarious.