Memes

And a new USDefaultism while we're at it.

Ik it exists on reddit, but it would be nice to not make it around Americans.

Terrific insight. I had often wondered if that alone would assist with adoption if it became standard in the US. That, or we would just print it in two formats all the time..

This, for sure. I live in the US and wanted to learn to understand Celsius so I switched my phone to use it. Internalizing a system works where translating/converting does not. I quickly learned that I feel comfortable in temperatures in the 20s. Since I feel comfortable in Fahrenheit temps in the upper 60s to mid 70s I can guess what the conversion is for most temps, but I don't have to do it to understand that I like how 22 C feels.

Similarly, if you're traveling and having to use a foreign currency I prefer to establish an idea in my head of cheap, reasonable, expensive than stopping to convert every price exactly. A "reasonable price" is relative to the item and location, of course, and should also affect my perspective.

Absorbing a new system by this method works fairly easily for temperatures and money, but less so for other measurements. I don't have as fine-tuned a sense of what ounces, pounds, or grams feel like as I do units of temperature. And I am always adding or subtracting 12 to understand time when expressed as 13h and up.

During the brief period when the US was encouraging metric system understanding there were many highway speed limit signs expressed as 55 mph / 88 kph. Every time I need to make that conversion I think of 5/8 because of that sign. And I usually just make guesstimates that work well enough.

I like learning new things. The generation before me in my family turned off their brains long ago and now suffer dementia. I work to keep my mind active. Learning other units of measure is one example.

Finally I'll say that I WISH I could get to a point of understanding languages this way without translation.

I find the conversion between the two easy enough to do it my head.

This isn't exact but is close enough for conversations and 99% of my needs.

(Temp in F - 30) / 2

Examples

70F:
70F - 30 = 40
40 / 2 = 20C

10F:
10F - 30 = -20
-20 / 2 = -10

The actual number is 21 / -12 but this is close enough for me 99.9% of the time

Thank you, this is a a great idea! I've found these common temperatures online, in case anyone wants to learn them:

Isn't Fahrenheit a "feel" temperature unit anyway? Once you need precision (science), even Americans switch to Celsius/Kelvin.

!ShitAmericansSay

I did exactly this but with 24 hour clock lol

Disagree. Celsius is super helpful for determining if it's gonna snow or not, a key weather thing where I live. Humid and cold and below 0? Snow. Humid and cold and above 0? Rain or freezing rain.

Also helps with plants. Below 0? Frost.

I'd argue you can't get more intuitive than 0 is cold, below 0 is very cold. Celsius also plays nice with round numbers, every 5 or 10 degrees is a change in feeling. 0 is cold, 5 out is cooler, 10 out is cool, 15 is moderate, 20 is comfortable, 25 is room and warm, 30 is hot, 35+ is very hot. Every ten degrees we're doing big changes. 0 is frozen, 10 is cool, 20 is comfortable, 30 is hot. 32 being frozen doesn't feel as intuitive.

What additional arguments besides personal experience would you give to back this precision claim?

Temperature scales are arbitrary by nature, and the criteria behind their definition can be useful or not. Fahrenheit's isn't that much useful compared to Celsius' or Kelvin's.

I don't get the precision argument. It really doesn't matter for personal use because you wouldn't feel the difference anyways and if you really needed it to be as precise as possible (for... I don't know, science) you'd use decimals. And if you're sciencing, you'd use the system that allows easy conversion, which is metric.