What's the most confusing thing about the US measurement system for you?

Posted by Majestic-Strain3155@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 284 comments

Even as Americans, did you ever struggle learning ounces, cups, pints, and miles? Do you ever wish the country would fully switch to metric, or do you find the imperial system second nature? What's the most annoying calculation you have to do regularly?

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TumbleFairbottom@reddit

Americans don’t use imperial. Imperial was standardized in the UK in 1826. The measurements we use were inherited prior to becoming a country. They were standardized into US Customary in 1832. To answer your question, do you find it confusing to speak your native language, or is it something you’ve grown up with and it comes naturally?

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NonBinary_FWrd@reddit

We are suppose to use them for liquor

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The_Amazing_Emu@reddit

Conversions aren’t easy. I never remember how many feet to a mile. But approximately how long a foot or a mile are is easy and intuitive

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Ozone220@reddit

five tomato five two eight o/zero 5280 feet in a mile that's how I was taught to remember feet to a mile, not too relevant here but it's stuck in my head for this long, maybe it'll help someone else (though I don't think I've ever needed to use it really)

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smapdiagesix@reddit

There's basically no reason to ever convert between miles and feet. You can just say it's 3 1/4 miles from here without having to care how many feet or yards or km that is. And you can just say you're flying at 28,000 feet without needing to care or know how many miles that might be.

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OverSearch@reddit

This also seems to destroy a large part of the "metric is better because it's base 10" argument. Just like there's basically no reason to ever convert between miles and feet, there's generally no reason to need to convert between metric units. Nobody is going around saying, "Oh, I'm 0.0019 km tall" or "I weigh 11,000 grams" or whatever. Just because you can do it in your head, doesn't mean it's useful.

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trotsky1947@reddit

Plus base 10 is a giant L for proportioning/scaling things without a good way to do thirds

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n00bdragon@reddit

I'll die on my soapbox that the ideal human counting system would have been Base 8. Base 12 divides and quarters better but you can't count it on your fingers.

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CoconutsAreEvil@reddit

Base 60 is even better being divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 30, and 60.

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TheRealMattyPanda@reddit

It's easy to count Base 12 on your fingers. Using your thumb to track, you go through the three segments on each of the four other fingers. The problem is that you can't really use it to communicate to others. Holding up my hand with my thumb on my second proximal phalanx doesn't read as easily as holding up three fingers.

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Curmudgy@reddit

The real problem is that we weren’t born with six fingers per hand.

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IReplyWithLebowski@reddit

That said, fractions are confusing and I don’t think I’ve ever used anything other than half, quarter, and third. I’d much rather 1.6 cms than 5/8ths of an inch.

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cohrt@reddit

How much are you doing those conversions? I almost never convert anything.

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Joel_feila@reddit

5.2 kft per 1 mile 3.18 kft per 1 km

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SabresBills69@reddit

1866 they adopted the metric system

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kay_bryberry@reddit

It’s still a dozen donuts.

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TumbleFairbottom@reddit

That’s true, but they measure houses and apartments in acres, square feet, and inches. They use miles per gallon. They often measure their weight in stone.

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glendacc37@reddit

Excellent answer.

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NonBinary_FWrd@reddit

American here. Liquor store will label hard liquor in 200ml and 350ml as half pints and pints. I should report them to Weights and Measures

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PiermontVillage@reddit

Okay, in everyday life, but US customary units cause engineers a lot of extra work. We just say, whatever the client wants. Compare the units for thermal conductivity: US: btu per hour per foot per degree F; metric: joules per second per meter per degree C. And don’t get me started on acres (43560 square feet), rods (16.5 feet), mile (5280 feet), etc., etc.

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TigercatF7F@reddit

Don't forget slugs. I can instantly identify a fellow American nerd when they know that the common conversion between pounds and kilograms is only true here on Earth, because they're really measuring two different things. Kilograms convert to slugs, not pounds. When an American says "I just shot that thar stop sign with a 12ga slug", they're actually demonstrating a keen grasp of American units :-)

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MrLongWalk@reddit

None of it, it’s second nature. What do you think would be confusing for us?

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MyUsername2459@reddit

That it's not Base 10. Metric advocates act like anything that isn't metric is inherently illogical, irrational, and impossible to understand, because metric works on Base 10 and other systems like US Customary, don't.

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docmoonlight@reddit

Right, yet nobody anywhere in the world is confused by our time system, which is 60 seconds to a minute, 60 minutes to an hour, 24 hours in a day, seven days in a week. How does anyone keep track of that? We should divide the day into ten metric hours and those into 100 metric minutes of 100 metric seconds. It would be so much more logical and so much easier! /s

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MyUsername2459@reddit

You joke, but they did attempt to create metric time, repeatedly. It was first proposed during the French Revolution, with the base unit of time as the jour. . .the day, divided into decijours (10th's of a day, with the decijour to replace the hour) centijours (100th's of a day, to replace minutes), millijours (1000th's of a day, to replace seconds) etc. They also tried at one point to create second-based decimal time, with decimal minutes (where a minute was a hectosecond, taking up 100 seconds) and a decimal hour was 10 hectoseconds, or one kilosecond (i.e. 1000 seconds etc.) That didn't work very well either. Simply put, they've tried, repeatedly, over the last 230+ years, to create decimal based metric time. . .it's never worked well at all, and eventually they just gave up on it.

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HorseFeathersFur@reddit

Time is not linear

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Kitchen-Nectarine179@reddit

Because that's not a star trek quote... the quote is "it's not linear" and it's not referring to time but the prophets perception of time.

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HorseFeathersFur@reddit

I didn’t say it was a quote. And why did a simple philosophical statement get downvoted?

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buchenrad@reddit

You're not linear

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HorseFeathersFur@reddit

Why was my simple Star Trek reference downvoted? Reddit, you’re crazy sometimes lol.

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buchenrad@reddit

I had no idea it was a star trek reference. I just thought it was being pedantic. Had I known the reference I probably would have thought it was cool.

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HorseFeathersFur@reddit

I mean, why was the simple statement considered pedantic? Philosophical? Maybe. But pedantic? I honestly don’t understand.

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buchenrad@reddit

For the same reason that the US has not entirely changed to metric. Its hard to get everyone to change to a new system when the old system works just fine and the world is built around it, even if the new system is technically better by some standard that is irrelevant to most people. 12 hours in a day is not hard once you understand it and use it. Neither is 12 inches to a foot.

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CalmRip@reddit

It would also be very expensive to completely convert to metric, for little if any benefit.

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Sirhc978@reddit

Swatch Internet Time

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Waisted-Desert@reddit

I still say I'll adopt the metric system when they convert time to metric. I want 100 seconds a minute, 10 minutes an hour, 100 hours a day, 1000 days a year! That meshes nicely with decades and centuries. /s kinda

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SteveMarck@reddit

That's the problem with it. Inches are 12 to a foot so I can divide it into more things evenly. Cups, points, etc are all just doubles so it's really handy for cooking. The stuff I use a lot is designed week for what I use it for. I'm not sending rockets to Mars, so I don't need the base ten. I want to know how to make brine that's 1/16 ratio. I want to know how many times I can make this recipe with this bag of stuff. For what I do day to day it works great.

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juanzy@reddit

I remember one thread similar talking about how baking/cooking measurements in imperial are stupid because you can’t “scale by 1.2 easily” Humans are also lazy, so if I’m making more or less of a recipe I’m probably doubling it, *maybe* one and a half which is also a factor of half. Not like I’m scaling up to the exact extra percentage of people relative to suggested serving. If I’m hosting I’d also rather have more too

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MyUsername2459@reddit

Exactly. That's why it works so well, it tends to divide well into halves, thirds, and quarters, which are fractions people naturally work with. The system was essentially designed for people to use comfortably, instead of designing something that would be based around mathematics. It's why metric works well for science and technology, and US customary works well for everyday life. Heck, the only reason the Mile is that quirky 5280 feet is that intermediary units of furlong, chain, and rod that come between foot and yard and a mile have fallen from use. It works out as multiples of intermediary units.

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SevenSixOne@reddit

Probably because non-Americans don't get much instruction or exposure to Freedom Units, so they assume we are as clueless about the metric system as they are about our system

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Rays-R-Us@reddit

Our old English system is archaic and confusing and causes errors when compared to nearly rest of the world metric system. Identical items have to be made in both systems doubling costs etc in

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Bvvitched@reddit

hey so like, you know how when you go to school you get taught how to do things and then as an adult you don't ever have to think about it because you were like...6 when you struggled to learn the thing and now it's just normal human existence for you? and it would be a weird and sorta insulting question if another adult asked you, a fully functional adult "hey, is that thing you learned as a child ever confusing?" yeah, no, nothing is confusing about the US system because we were taught how to do it (and break down fractions which is what 1/3 of a cup is) backwards and forwards. when you get taught things, it isn't difficult. and we have to learn the metric system in school because some aspects of our sciences utilize it, so we learn or at least go over, both. we use a hybrid system.

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ErasableFilms@reddit

It’s not confusing when it’s the only system you know 🤷🏻‍♂️

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DrMindbendersMonocle@reddit

We know metric too, despite what Euros think.

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AlienDelarge@reddit

Euros are just bitter we have the mental capacity to handle fractions unlike their simple minds.

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molten_dragon@reddit

It's funny how so many European people take pride in being bilingual and look down on Americans for only knowing English but a the same time take pride in only knowing and using the metric system and look down on Americans for knowing and using both systems.

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Tedanty@reddit

It’s not even that impressive of a figure, about 25% of Americans being bilingual vs 55% of Europeans. Considering you can throw a rock and be in a country that speaks another language and English being such a dominant language world wide, it makes sense they have higher numbers.

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amidatong@reddit

You are so right! Mind blown.

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Current_Poster@reddit

Also, working out sales taxes and tips.

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IReplyWithLebowski@reddit

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should

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Derplord4000@reddit

Why shouldn't we work out sales tax and tip?

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ErasableFilms@reddit

Why are you so rude? No one is being rude to you. Get a life.

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IReplyWithLebowski@reddit

Why are you being so defensive?

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terryjuicelawson@reddit

Let's be honest, this whole sub is basically "defend weird American things no matter what".

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ErasableFilms@reddit

I only have discussions or debates when it’s in good faith. That question, in my opinion, says you’re not doing that.

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IReplyWithLebowski@reddit

Okey dokey

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bryku@reddit

There was a huge study done in 2015 where they tested different countries and fractions. USA scored insanely high across all ages. Which I would assume is because we use a lot of fractions.   Either way, I thought it was interesting.

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IReplyWithLebowski@reddit

Yep! When I was in the US people were talking about things like 5/8ths like they were everyday things. I’ve only ever dealt with half/quarter/thirds outside of primary school.

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bryku@reddit

Construction workers in the us can add 2/72 and 3/8ths right off the top of their head. It is a pretty wild sight.

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Salarian_American@reddit

When I was a kid, they taught us the metric system because they legitimately believed we were going to switch to it in the near future. (that was in the 80s)

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MyUsername2459@reddit

Yeah, we know it, we just don't use it in everyday life. I mean, we KNOW what meters, kilometers, liters, grams etc. are. . .we just don't use them in everyday life. Anyone in a scientific, medical, or technical field in the US works with them professionally. . .but we just don't see a need to use them in everyday life. US customary works very well for everyday household needs. It's pretty well suited to the needs of a typical, everyday person living a typical life. It's terrible for scientific or technical purposes. . .but we don't use it for that.

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JimBones31@reddit

If you pay attention to what you eat, you use grams all the time.

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Curmudgy@reddit

I use grams for weighing out food at home. My scale makes that easy. But when I’m eating out and have to guesstimate quantities, I resort back to ounces.

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tu-vens-tu-vens@reddit

I think that US customary units are actually a hindrance when it comes to weight – for things like cooking, not having a unit smaller than an ounce makes things more difficult and is part of the reason why we cook by volume instead of weight.

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Curmudgy@reddit

We do have units smaller than an ounce. We just use fractions instead of decimals so 1/4 oz is common. I've always attributed our reliance on volume to the poor quality of kitchen scales 50 years ago, but that's just an educated guess on my part.

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MyUsername2459@reddit

Oh, definitely. I remember when I was a kid in the 1980's, the kitchen scale my mother had was TERRIBLE. It was this thing with springs that gave you a rough estimate of how many ounces something is. A modern digital kitchen scale works in both grams and ounces, and is very, very precise. Back in the 80's, if you had a scale in your kitchen that could tell you exactly how many grams something was, they'd probably think you were selling drugs.

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JimBones31@reddit

But when looking at nutrition, you can eat a 12oz steak and measure the protein in grams.

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TheBimpo@reddit

> meters, kilometers, liters, grams etc. are. . .we just don't use them in everyday life. Sure we do. Ran a 5k, bought a 2 liter of Pepsi, bought a few grams of weed, weighed my flour in grams weighing bread. We use it so much, so often, all the time that we don't even recognize we're using two systems. It's like we're bilingual, but with measuring.

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bryku@reddit

Every mechanic with inch and mm sockets...

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TheBimpo@reddit

And the European mind probably thinks that we “have” to do a conversion from 10 mm to a fraction for some reason. No man, we just use both.

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machagogo@reddit

I guess you have never bought or had to dose out any medicine?

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Help1Ted@reddit

This is it! We get shit on enough for not being bilingual enough, yet also don’t get the credit with knowing multiple measurement systems. Pick up anything with a label and you can see multiple measurements listed. Doesn’t mean that we use them, they are simply listed. So many things are actually measured in metric it’s almost just second nature. In fairness we can also simply use what’s available as a measurement. I used my garbage can the other day to describe a kid who went running by. Parents were looking for him, and when they asked how tall he was I looked at the trash cans and said he’s about a garbage can with blonde hair. Guy looked at the cans and said yeah, that’s him.

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Fold-Statistician@reddit

Do you remember how many feet are on a yard?

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moonwillow60606@reddit

Three. It’s really not hard to remember. And guess what a yard is just about the same length as a meter. They put both on a yardstick. It’s just basic math.

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smugbox@reddit

Three

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Fold-Statistician@reddit

Yards in a mile?

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-Moose_Soup-@reddit

I don't know that I have ever needed to know that at any point in 35 years. I know 5280 feet in a mile, and that's always been enough. Iguess I could divide by 3 in my head pretty easily, but again, I literally can't think of a single time in my life when I have needed to know that because nobody would use yards in any situation where conversion to miles would be needed. Outside of sports, 90% of my usage of "yards" has been learning how to eyeball estimate distance for target shooting, hunting, etc.

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smugbox@reddit

I would never need to make this conversion but it’s not like it’s hard

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GhostOfJamesStrang@reddit

1760. 5,280ft/mi. 1420 is a quarter mile (thank you, drag racing.)

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Nan_Mich@reddit

5280 / 3

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Popular-Local8354@reddit

1760

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Chimney-Imp@reddit

Europeans complaining about difficult conversions and it's just this lol

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MyUsername2459@reddit

Three. Even small children know that. That's absolutely trivial.

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ErasableFilms@reddit

As smugbox said, it’s 3. Again, we start learning it at the age of like 5. It becomes second nature.

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MarcusAurelius0@reddit

3 feet

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TheBimpo@reddit

I also know metric and most Americans use metric daily for all sorts of things. Yet again, we're morons for using two systems of measurement which is impossibly difficult to other people who require simplicity.

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Tedanty@reddit

As someone who uses metric for a living, the American system is still easier and quicker for me for basic everyday needs.

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MagnumForce24@reddit

We grew up with it so its easy and intuitive to us. And I will die on thr hill that Farenheit is the far better measurement for humans to use.

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SnooHesitations9356@reddit

Having to learn metric for high school chemistry and then rarely using it has so far been the most confusing. Also, trying to talk to Canadians to establish what temperature it is.

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ColdStockSweat@reddit

I wish we would change to imperial every day.

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DaneLimmish@reddit

There's not any consistency to it. Twelve inches make a foot but twelve foot don't make a yard

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travelinmatt76@reddit

I always forget cups to quarts to gallons, and how many ounces to a pound.

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TechnologyDragon6973@reddit

> Even as Americans, did you ever struggle learning ounces, cups, pints, and miles? No. The sizes are generally intuitive and most of the conversions are base 12, which is also intuitive. The only confusing one is the BTU because there are I believe three different definitions. That one should be fixed to a single definition. > Do you ever wish the country would fully switch to metric Absolutely not. I wish metric were illegal to use for anything other than as the definitional basis for USCS. Our system is based on the measurements of medieval England, which in turn was derived from ancient Rome’s units. It’s human centered and developed organically from centuries of use. Metric was invented in revolutionary France for the reason of throwing out everything from the Ancien Régime. Metric is arbitrary and only has appeal to people who can’t remember fractions. It had to be forced on most countries that adopted it because it’s not as well designed as its shills suggest. I used metric for years in school and at work, so I understand it perfectly well. My opposition to it is well informed. > or do you find the imperial system second nature We don’t use imperial. Britain standardized English customary units in one way, and we did the same in a different way. The base units are the same, but the larger and derived units sometimes differ. I would like it if we used the stone though.

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willtag70@reddit

I'd prefer we used metric for everything. I've traveled in Europe a fair amount and adapting to using kilos and grams for weights, liters and ml for liquids, and km for distance is an easy transition. Using our weights, volumes and length measures is definitely more cumbersome than it needs to be. Figuring fractions of lengths for woodwork is an example.

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laughingmanzaq@reddit

Wood products (namely firewood/cut wood) is the one area i think metric struggles with. Seems to be a bunch of national variations in what people think a cube-meter/stere of wood is.

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willtag70@reddit

Won't argue that, but it's not a wood measurement I encounter. My point is it's easier to figure 1/2 or 1/3 of 60cm, than the equivalent 23 5/8 inches.

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AlfredoAllenPoe@reddit

Nothing is confusing to me. Why would it be?

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WasabiParty4285@reddit

I think people who grew up on the metric system love how easy it is to do math with and the difficulty of doing math with US customary units bothers them. They don't understand that a tablespoon is a spoon you eat with and so even if you don't have an official measuring spoon you can add a tablespoon of something in the kitchen. A cup is just that and you can grab a cup out of the cabinet to measure with. I can count off feet and yards by walking and take 1800 steps to a mile. The older units are terrible for math and make science and engineering harder than they have to be. But they are really easy in day to day life.

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SteampunkExplorer@reddit

Tablespoons aren't necessarily a tablespoon, though, and most cups definitely aren't a cup.

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WasabiParty4285@reddit

Most cups I've seen are cups. Maybe not a big coca or coffee cup, but a standard white cup is 8 oz. Sure tablespoons may not be exactly a tablespoon but the average soupspoon is 15ml, which strangely enough 1.014 table spoons.

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bryku@reddit

They do feel very natural to use. Chances are you have a body part or object around you that is very close to any of those measurements.

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SteampunkExplorer@reddit

Second nature? My dear, the US units (which are not quite the same thing as Imperial) are our *first* nature. We're *Americans*. 😂 Do you ever wish you could replace your system with ours? Anyway, we also use metric. It's better for *some* things, but not most. It's a lot more common in daily life (or at least my daily life) to need an eighth of something than a thousandth.

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Wielder-of-Sythes@reddit

I don’t do a lot of conversions and calculations in my daily life so it hasn’t really bothered me. The only hardship I encounter is converting to or from metric which I usually just covert by a website that does the math for me.

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uhhohspagettios@reddit

I still don't understand volumetric. Temperature, length, weight, etc are all good though, and I can convert easily. I'm a stem boy so I know my metric pretty well and can swap between pretty easily.

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bloodectomy@reddit

\>What's the most confusing thing about the US measurement system for you? the fact that euros comprehend speaking multiple languages but not using multiple systems of measurement. it's literally the same fucking concept. Our dumb asses are smart enough to understand, so what in \*the fuck\* is europe's excuse?

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Seidhr96@reddit

The system we use is not confusing to us because we grew up learning it. That said, I have to use metric at work and I would really like if we started transitioning. Also every day things are easier such as cooking if we just used metric. I don’t think there is any motivation to switch though From my understanding we tried to switch to metric in I think the 70s but it was halted because housewives were complaining about cooking conversions if I recall correctly. That has left us with this weird half system in some areas and you can still see signs sometimes that are very old and have km listed. There is a good example along a stretch of interstate in Arizona.

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Salarian_American@reddit

If I had any difficulty learning it, it happened when I was a small child and I don't remember. I know it's objectively more confusing the way the terms completely change as you measure larger distances/volumes/whatever, but a lifetime of using these things as reference points means I don't actually have any trouble remembering (for example) how many fluid ounces are in a cup, how many cups are in a pint, how many pints are in a quart, and how many quarts there are in a gallon.

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CalmRip@reddit

I think you might be imagining that because you aren't familiar with the U.S. Customary System of measurements (not Imperial, there are differences in both units and unit values), and it's not decimal, that it's difficult to use. The average American struggles no more with our units than does the average European with metric units. And no, we don't find calculations in base two hard. I'd rather do carpentry dimensions in inches than CM any day. If nothing else, much less likely to commit human error by mistaking a decimal point (2mm instead of 2cm).

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PromiseThomas@reddit

I’m gonna go against the grain and say that I do find it confusing. I cook and bake a lot and when I have to convert it fucking sucks. Recently I had a recipe where I doubled the recipe but I was using dried herbs instead of fresh so I had to double the amount of herbs and then divide by 3 because you’re supposed to use 1/3 the amount of dried herbs as fresh because they’re stronger. I imagine this would have been easier with the imperial system but I had to look up how many teaspoons go into a tablespoon (it’s like 3.4, I rounded it to 3.5) and then figure out that I needed like 1.5 tsp to get the fraction of a tablespoon I needed. Ugh!!!! I also have trouble remembering how many ounces are in a cup or a pound. That might just be me. Miles are not hard because I don’t need to convert it into anything else.

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Seven22am@reddit

What is confusing to me is why the rest of the world doesn’t use it to discuss height. It’s much more intuitive when basically every adult is 1.something something.

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Ravenclaw79@reddit

Fahrenheit is far superior, too. It’s way easier to describe the weather when you have more numbers to work with. Every forecast in Celsius is in the teens or 20s — the difference between hot and cold is really tiny on that scale.

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GreenBeanTM@reddit

Also, for general life why would you measure temperature off of how it feels to water instead of people?

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WhatABeautifulMess@reddit

Yes! I can only understand Celsius in the winter because it’s easy to see if it’s just over or under freezing. The weather where I am is typically 0-100F so it’s easy to think of as a percentage of how warm it is.

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shelwood46@reddit

It amuses me that my Canadian friends will use C in the winter, but switch to F in the summer. Drama queens. (Also I once had someone swear it was 120F in Toronto that day, It was 85F. They are even worse at converting than we are).

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Jasnah_Sedai@reddit

Agreed. The US customary foot is where it’s at. Saying someone is 184cm tall is so dumb. But it’s also dumb to say they’re 1.84 meters. It would make so much more sense if they would actually use decimeters. Having no commonly used unit between centimeters and meters is where the metric system fails.

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GreenBeanTM@reddit

No, I don’t want to us to switch and have to learn a whole new system. There are also *much* better things for my tax dollars to be spent on. Do you find the metric system confusing? No, oh because it’s what you grew up with. Yea that makes sense. Now apply that logic to us.

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Salty_Dog2917@reddit

Nothing is confusing about US customary to me.

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El_Polio_Loco@reddit

Even how many teaspoons go into a tablespoon?

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InternistNotAnIntern@reddit

Three

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El_Polio_Loco@reddit

Yeah, why three, when cups, pints, quarts, gallons are all base 2

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geneb0323@reddit

Because the amount in a teaspoon changed over time. Originally a teaspoon was equal to a dram, of which there are 4 in a tablespoon.

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El_Polio_Loco@reddit

Very interesting! I wonder why it changed.

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geneb0323@reddit

This is going to sound made up, but I promise it isn't. It's because tea was originally very expensive when it was first introduced to England, so they used smaller spoons and cups (this is also why a cup of tea is 6 ounces, not 8 ounces). When the price of tea came down, the size of the spoons increased, so a teaspoon was larger when the US Customary System was standardized. A teaspoon in the British system is still equal to 1 dram, though.

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Popular-Local8354@reddit

Because that’s the way it is

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El_Polio_Loco@reddit

Yes, it doesn’t make it less confusing.

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buchenrad@reddit

A 3:1 ratio is not confusing. Do they not teach math in Europe? I'm convinced people who go this far to refuse to accept the US measurement system don't have anything against the system. They just hate the people who use it.

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El_Polio_Loco@reddit

First off, watch your assumptions. Secondly, base three in and of itself isn’t confusing. Changing base multiple times in a measurement system is. Going from base 3 to base 2 is silly.

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HeyPurityItsMeAgain@reddit

It's not base 3.

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InternistNotAnIntern@reddit

This American agrees with you

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machagogo@reddit

Why is a meter meter the length of the path that light travels in a vacuum in \(1/299,792,458\) of a second? Why is a gram the weight of a hunk of metal that is in a bell jar locate in France no one can touch? It's just the way it is.

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El_Polio_Loco@reddit

You seem to be confusing the word base. Base means numbering system. Base 2 means 0, 1, 10, 11, 20, 21 While base 4 would be 0, 1, 2, 3, 10, 11, etc. So changing from a base 3, to base 2, to base 4, makes everything a little awkward. Like, I can’t make 1 and a half tablespoons with a tea spoon.

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InternistNotAnIntern@reddit

But you can with a half teaspoon!

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machagogo@reddit

No, I am not confusing base. I am just saying the root of the size of the measurement doesn't always have strict logical sense, regardless of system of measurement. But anyway, you can make 1.5 tablespoons.. 1.5 tablespoons is 4.5 teaspoons... If you are going to half one, why couldn't you half the other? Simple fractions just aren't difficult.

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docmoonlight@reddit

Three. I don’t have to think about it at all. How many tablespoons in a cup I couldn’t tell you, off the top of my head, but it’s also not something that’s useful to know. Like if the recipe calls for half a cup, I’m just going to use the measuring cup, not measure it out in tablespoons.

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El_Polio_Loco@reddit

It gets annoying when I’m doubling or tripling recipes that don’t just use weights. My real gripe is volumetric powders measurement, when mass is so much more simple.

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TheBimpo@reddit

Any serious baker uses grams and uses a scale. No one's pulling out a pencil and sweating over conversions.

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HeyPurityItsMeAgain@reddit

I don't. I have a scale but it's easier not to use it for recipes I make all the time. I don't have an instinctive grasp of grams so they slow me down. E.g., I can accurately eyeball or hand weigh ingredients in ounces but I need to operate a sale if using grams. I can convert in my head anyway and I know the volumetric weight of various ingredients (e.g., 1 cup of flour is 4.5 oz, 1 cup of chocolate chips is 6 oz, etc.).

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El_Polio_Loco@reddit

Many older recipes are volumetric only. Common grams/oz listings on recipes has really only taken off in the last decade or so (in the US anyway)

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Chad-Ironrod@reddit

Not having to use a scale is what is so much more simple. And unless you are running a professional bakery with a high value on repeatability, the volume measurement is close enough for any kind of baking, despite what some neurotics would have you believe.

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El_Polio_Loco@reddit

Using a basic scale is faster, more repeatable, and less messy since you don’t need to get multiple measuring devices dirty. Just have a basic scoop and put it in a bowl. You don’t need to worry about compaction, scaling is simple. Everyone should have a simple kitchen scale, they cost $15 and are useful in a litany of kitchen tasks.

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HeyPurityItsMeAgain@reddit

I have a scale. This is absolutely not true -- because the scale auto turns off after 1 minute. 😂

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curlyhead2320@reddit

I often go the other way and halve or quarter a recipe. The worst is if I have to divide by 3. Good lord, the math required to convert a chicken salad recipe that calls for 2lbs of chicken breast when I wanted to make it with 0.6lbs of leftover chicken.

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stochasticInference@reddit

16. I always convert to sticks of butter in my head for this one. 8 Tablespoons is one stick is half a cup.

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benkatejackwin@reddit

I do know that it's four for a quarter cup (because, if I already have out a tablespoon, and a recipe calls for 1/4 cup, I'm not getting out another measuring vessel. Four scoops is easy enough). So, 16 for a cup.

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TillPsychological351@reddit

I don't even need to know that because I have the measuring spoons on the same ring.

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SteveMarck@reddit

It is weird that it's three and not an even number. But I don't really think about it much.

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Mission-Carry-887@reddit

> Even as Americans, did you ever struggle learning ounces, cups, pints, and miles? No > Do you ever wish the country would fully switch to metric, No > or do you find the imperial system second nature? The U.S. does not use the imperial system. The U.S. uses the U.S. system. Some units are the same. Some (e.g. gallons) are not. Metric system for letter sized paper: * 210 mm × 297 mm U.S. system for letter sized paper: * 8.5 inches x 11 inches I’m good, thanks.

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cryptoengineer@reddit

On paper sizes I have to say the European system is better. It's not actually metric, but the length of long and short sides is related by sqrt(2). This means that all the sizes can be made by folding the next larger size in half.

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unitconversion@reddit

The us sizes are also made by folding in half as you go from d to c to b to a. The aspect ratio goes back and forth between two ratios (0.77 and 0.64) instead of being one ratio at every size (0.707), but for most practical purposes they're close enough for upscaling "regular" documents. For example, printing an 11x17 electrical print out on 8.5x11 or vice versa works just fine.

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juanzy@reddit

Maybe memorizing the exact conversions in school or something. But in the real world, I know the ones I use by heart, and if not, I have a fridge magnet for conversion. And not like I’m regularly converting miles to feet or inches or something.

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joepierson123@reddit

No it seems perfectly fine. Any measurement system is arbitrary

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fetus-wearing-a-suit@reddit

I agree with that statement, but the US system uses different measurements for different magnitudes: inches, feet, and miles for distance; ounces and pounds for weight; ounces and gallons for volume. For example, Europeans are xxxcm tall, I am x.xxm tall, I don't have to think about the conversion at all, but if someone said they are 77 inches tall you'd take a second to convert it to feet and inches. Or if they said a block was 0.13 miles long you'd take a moment to convert it to feet, whereas I have no trouble understanding 0.2km vs 200m.

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01WS6@reddit

>but if someone said they are 77 inches tall you'd take a second to convert it to feet and inches. Or if they said a block was 0.13 miles long you'd take a moment to convert it to feet I think the problem here is that you assume someone would tell you their height in inches or measure the block in "0.xx" miles and you would for some reason need to convert that to feet. In an everyday conversation, they would tell you their height in feet and tell you the block length in feet(or maybe say quarter mile, half mile, etc), and there wouldn't be any need to convert anyway if they were using other measurements.

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WhatABeautifulMess@reddit

I wouldn’t convert height because I’ve never needed to know or actually cared how tall someone is. People tell you unsolicited, usually if they think it’s impressive, but I’ve never had any practical need to consider someone else’s height in my life.

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getElephantById@reddit

> if someone said they are 77 inches tall you'd take a second to convert it to feet and inches. That's not a feature of the measurement system though, that's something we choose to do. If we wanted, we could just express length in terms of feet: instead of 6'5", we could say 7.42 feet. We just choose to do it differently. I think the fact that we choose to do it the way we do implies it's not that big of a deal to mix and convert units!

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JudgeWhoOverrules@reddit

No one says they are 77 inches tall just like no one in Europe measures in decameters.

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smapdiagesix@reddit

> if someone said they are 77 inches tall you'd take a second to convert it to feet and inches You can just leave it as inches, and this is actually reasonably common in more technical circles. This patient is 73 inches tall, you need to cut that board 54 1/16 inches. > Or if they said a block was 0.13 miles long you'd take a moment to convert it to feet No. Why on earth would you do that? 0.13 miles is fine, but people would really say that it's an eighth of a mile.

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joepierson123@reddit

Nobody is ever converting miles to feet. For recipes we can use measurements like cups teaspoons tablespoons which don't require any weight scale.

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benkatejackwin@reddit

I wouldn't convert .13 to feet. I'd just think, "oh, about a tenth of a mile." I also probably would convert 77 inches to feet and inches. I know inches to feet for at least up to 6 feet.

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TumbleFairbottom@reddit

I’m 3 feet 37 inches tall, or 4 feet 25 inches if you prefer.

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bryku@reddit

Since we grow up with it, there isnt really any issues. It would be nice if there was 1 number for all the conversions, but you learn it growing up, so it gets stuck in your head.

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thelittleluca@reddit

I wish there was a global standard. When I traveled internationally for the first time as an adult recently, I really struggled with the conversions.

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FatGuyOnAMoped@reddit

It's cumbersome, but after awhile you figure it out. I have a conversation chart in my kitchen for use when I'm cooking. Growing up in the 1970s, I remember a concerted effort in the schools to teach the metric system. Unfortunately, when Reagan became president in the 1980s, they quit teaching it.

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CaptainAwesome06@reddit

Conversation charts are great for when there is an awkward silence.

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HeyPurityItsMeAgain@reddit

Who else has magnet conversion charts stuck to their fridge from a politician or real estate agent advertisement?

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FatGuyOnAMoped@reddit

Damn autocorrect 🤬

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MyUsername2459@reddit

Yeah, Reagan's election basically ended metric conversion in the US. There was ongoing metrication in the US under Carter, but Reagan made ending that part of his campaign platform. Officially the reason was that it would be unfair to small businesses, that forcing little "mom & pop" grocery stores to buy new metric scales for their produce and meat, or other small businesses to change their labeling and packaging to metric quantities would be burdensome and cumbersome and was an example of the "big government" overreach of authority that Reagan denounced.

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OrangeTwitler@reddit

I almost entirely eschew the altogether ill-conceived U.S. customary measurement system. This is quite easy to do in a STEM fields, which recognize the objective superiority of the metric system. Retailers here exploit the lack of logical consistency of the U.S. system by reporting quantities of products variously in ounces, pounds, quarts, as well as grams, in an attempt to thwart price-conscious shoppers.

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HeyPurityItsMeAgain@reddit

Products generally have both units so not really.

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Bluemonogi@reddit

It isn’t confusing when you have used it since you were a young child. Are you confused by the measurement system you grew up using? The most annoying thing about measurements to me is when I cook. I wish more recipes were using weight instead of cups- like a cup of shredded cheese is annoying. When you buy a package of cheese it is labeled with weight. Just say 4 oz or so many grams of the ingredient. I also hate recipes that mix and do some weights and some cups or ask you to put in 10 tablespoons of something.

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HeyPurityItsMeAgain@reddit

A cup of (hard) cheese is 4 oz btw. There's a King Arthur volumetric weight ingredient list I basically memorized when I started baking seriously.

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Redbubble89@reddit

I didn't learn until my 20s that the UK pint size is different than ours and they measure weight sometimes in stones. I think that is imperial and we're U.S. customary. We don't generally have to convert units like they had us do in elementary school. When buying a gallon of gas, it's always listed as a gallon. They don't list it as a quart and have everyone divide the price by 4 to get what it would be as a gallon because the car lists the tank size in gallons. Certain fields like construction or design might do a lot of conversions unless that has changed but most Americans don't go from like feet to yard to miles ever. I use to swim competitively and still do for exercise. The outdoor summer pools are 25 meters and Olympic is 50 meters but indoor pools are 25 yards. Even doing 60 to 100 lengths, it is obvious which one is shorter by a little over 2 meters but it doesn't matter at the end of the day. Science has gone full metric just to match the rest of the world. Celsius is not precise enough. The time to make it mandatory was 100 years ago and at this point with cars, traffic signs, and everything else costs too much and everyone grew up using it this way.

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HeyPurityItsMeAgain@reddit

You want to talk about weird -- stones are 14 pounds. I'm reading a book with British characters on diets and I keep converting it and baffling at who thought that was a good idea.

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HeyPurityItsMeAgain@reddit

No. I understand and can easily convert to metric anyway... unlike people outside America who are constantly confused, apparently.

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ITrCool@reddit

> did you ever struggle learning ounces, cups, pints, and miles? Not really, no. I learned from visual charts, and memorized the values. It was actually pretty simple. >Do you ever wish the country would fully switch to metric, or do you find the imperial system second nature? Meh, metric is ok for some things, but American imperial is second nature nowadays, it'd be a nightmare logistically to try and convert the country. It'd be a long, drawn out, slow process of re-education from younger generations still in school, and even then, the confusion between generations would have to be dealt with somehow. There's just no good way to do that. >What's the most annoying calculation you have to do regularly? Convert between Fahrenheit and Celsius, but we have apps for that nowadays, so calculation-wise.....meh. Not really anything.

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CaptainAwesome06@reddit

The only thing that trips me up is remembering how many cups are in a quart or how many feet are in a mile, etc. But it's really not a big deal. We're used to the measurement system. It's second nature. There are no annoying calculations that I do regularly. A lot of us in STEM fields feel comfortable using metric, as well. For as much crap as Americans get for using the US Customary system (not Imperial), it's really not that big of a deal. And I'll go further with saying that Fahrenheit is better than Celsius when it comes to weather.

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MyUsername2459@reddit

Fahrenheit works really, really well for weather. People say it irrational because it doesn't calibrate well to boiling or freezing water. . .but needing to know how hot or cold it is outside comes up far more often than needing to know the temperature of water I'm trying to boil or freeze.

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CaptainAwesome06@reddit

Right? I turn the burner on high and when it bubbles I've reached the boiling point. I set my freezer at a certain temp and I don't touch it again for years. When does it ever come up again?

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Cootter77@reddit

Things I like about the US system because I'm used to them and I can approximate them: \* Human-compatible Temperatures/weather \* Medium and large distance measurement - feet and miles including speed/mph Things I wish were Metric: \* Small and micro distance measurement - woodworking, mechanics, etc... \* Volume measures \* Weight measures \* All other temperatures (cooking, physics, etc...)

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PennyForPig@reddit

Our measuring systems suck. It's 3 Teaspoons to a Tablespoon 16 Tablespoons to a cup 2 Cups to a Pint 2 Pints to a Quart 4 Quarts to a Gallon And don't get me started on how long a mile is. Who knows. I couldn't even *describe* how long a mile is.

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getElephantById@reddit

I think the metric is probably easier to learn, but it's really not a big deal to learn our system. I would say the only actual advantage in switching to metric would be to use the same system as the rest of the world. The reality is that in science and engineering, everybody's using metric in the U.S. anyway, or at least are able to use it when needed. Most educated Americans know the metric system, at least as much as is relevant to them. The sticking point for me is that I never developed an intuition about metric units. When I was a kid, in school had us walk the perimeter of a big open field, and they said "that's a mile, remember it," and I do to this day. I have no equivalent early memories of learning how far a kilometer is, or what a kilogram feels like to hold. So, metric isn't my go to system, it always requires a mental conversion. There are neat elements to the metric system that I wish we had in our system, like how 1 kg of water is 1 liter. That's a neat little optimization. They say "a pint's a pound the world round", but it's not technically true, it's just approximate.

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Hatweed@reddit

I find US Customary to be completely natural as I grew up using it, but converting to metric can be a hassle sometimes.

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WhatABeautifulMess@reddit

Like others are saying I don't find it confusing because I'm used to it. Personally I find Fahrenheit far superior to Celsius for weather because you can look at the scale of temperature in most places as roughly a percentage. Depending on wind/shade/humidity factors 50F outside feels neither hot nor cold, basically neutral. To me 10F is 10% warm, 75F is 75% warm, 98F is 98% warm. Similarly under 0 is too fuckin cold and over 100 is too fuckin hot.

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Shandrith@reddit

I do sometimes have to look up the conversion for liquid measures, but only because I so rarely use them. The system is just as second nature to us as metric is to you. For a reasonable reverse question, do you ever have trouble with using C instead of F? After all, F is more granular, and you don't have to use decimals to describe notable temperature differences.

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goblin_hipster@reddit

Not at all. I never think about these things. If I really need to know the conversion, then I Google it, or use the calculator on my phone. Otherwise, it doesn't *really* matter. You could call these 2 cups of water *anything*. 2 smadgepools of water. Ah, luckily I have my 6-smadgepool measuring cup. All I need to know is the correct tool for the correct amount.

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Adorable-East-2276@reddit

The only time either system gets confusing for me is if somebody gives me a temperature in Celsius because even after 5 years in other countries I can’t for the life of me remover what 25 Communist means in Freedom. Both systems work pretty much the same as long as you know the local one

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shelwood46@reddit

Every time someone tells me they were sweltering because it was 30C, in my head I think, "And that's... hot? Probably hot. European hot. Brits will pass out."

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Fappy_as_a_Clam@reddit

It's 77f. 25c is an easy one, because its the temperature that Europeans start to die from heat stroke in their brick oven houses.

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shelwood46@reddit

Having to figure out if a Celsius temperature is actually hot.

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Geskakay1985@reddit

It’s the only system I know- I do have a hard time talking to people outside of the US all the time :) but it’s all we know in US.

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CountChoculasGhost@reddit

I mean at a basic level, no, I don’t have any issues with this. But it isn’t as intuitive. Do I know how many teaspoons are in a tablespoon? No. Do I know how to convert quarts to cups? No. So I have to look those things up if they were to come up, but that doesn’t actually come up very often. Same with miles, Fahrenheit, etc.

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machagogo@reddit

None of is confusing. Don't confuse you having not learned it with meaning it is unlearnable...

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3Effie412@reddit

Not confusing at all. When you grow up with something, it just becomes natural.

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Interesting-Egg4295@reddit

No. It's very easy. And making conversions is easy, too. I can do it almost without thinking because it's second nature. It's like calculating 9.25% tax on my purchases. I do it so often, I can do the math instantly. It's not hard with a tiny bit of practice.

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witchy12@reddit

I only ever use cups and miles. Ounces and pints are pretty much worthless to me, especially as someone who works in science, so grams and milliliters/liters are the standard.

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InternistNotAnIntern@reddit

Volume. I'm in my 50s and I still can't do ounces through gallons

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TheBimpo@reddit

When/why do you need to do this? The people that ask the "conversion" question are looking at it in terms of THEIR perspective. They think there's a need to convert to metric so things make sense to them. We use one or the other or both, all the time, and it's not confusing at all. It's like being bilingual.

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InternistNotAnIntern@reddit

Pretty rarely. But sometimes I'm trying to figure out the cost per unit volume or weight. One is listed in ounces, another in quarts or gallons. Then I have to get all algebra on it and get down to the lowest common denominator.

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Pinwurm@reddit

Nothing is confusing about it. Our system is built for human scale. Miles make sense because we're a car culture. Highway speeds average 60 MPH, city driving around 30 MPH. That means a mile a minute, or half/mile a minute. If a town is 30 miles away, that’s roughly half an hour. If a restaurant is 10 miles across town, that’s about 20 minutes. Simple. Feet work because they’re divided into 12 inches. Same reason we use a 12-hour clock. 12 is the most fractionally divisible number we use. 1/2, 1/3, 1/4. Great for construction and measuring objects up close. Yeah, 5,280 feet in a mile *sounds* insane. But they're two different systems. Miles themselves are *secretly metric*, they're 1000 Roman paces. But we don't use paces anymore. And we break miles into 1/2 or 1/4 or an 1/8 because that's easier to understand when we drive those distances regularly. For temperature, 0 is about as cold as winter gets, 100 is about as hot as as summer gets. 0-100 is a super easy scale and there's no need for decimalization like in Celsius. In science, we just use Celsius anyway. For cooking, most people eyeball recipes, and baking is the only time scales matter. I don't bake, so I can't really speak to how annoying this might be. Volume is inconsistent. Gallons for gasoline, liters for soda, pints for ice cream, grams for medication. I'm happy to make a compromise here but nobody cares enough. All that said, this doesn't impact daily life in any negative way and our scientists, businessfolk and academics use both systems.

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Columbiyeah@reddit

Most people don't deal with liquid measurements very often, so the relation pints and quarts etc can be hard to remember.

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itsjustmo_@reddit

The most confusing thing about the US measurement system is the foreign insistence that it's confusing.

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cikanman@reddit

The oddest to me is the lack of standard increment 12 inches equal a foot 5128 feet equal a mile 4 pints equals a quart but 2 quarts equal a gallon. Metric is simpler

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clearliquidclearjar@reddit

There are four quarts in a gallon. They're quarters. 2 cups in a pint. 2 pints in a quart.

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TsundereLoliDragon@reddit

Also, 5280 feet in a mile.

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cikanman@reddit

see you all literally proved my damn point. I need a damn cheat sheet for conversions. At least I know 100 milimeters equals 1 CM, 100 CM equals 1M, 1000 M equals 1KM. Simple

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clearliquidclearjar@reddit

I have never needed to know that, so that doesn't really matter to me.

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stochasticInference@reddit

oh, come on. 12 inches to a foot, 3 feet to a yard, 22 yards to a chain, 10 chains to a furlong, and 8 furlongs to a mile. couldn't be simpler

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SabresBills69@reddit

officially the USA is metric. it’s just not in practice. everyone uses English measurements all the time when doing cooking recipes in ounces and cups and teaspoons to drivingbrules have miles based speed limits.

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throwfar9@reddit

Ask any sailor and they’ll tell you nautical miles are the way to go. It’s 6000 feet ( close enough), 2000 yards, ties directly to lat-long, and enables the Three-Minute-Rule, which has prevented more collisions in history than radar.

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TheBimpo@reddit

> Even as Americans, did you ever struggle learning ounces, cups, pints, and miles? No, we start learning it as toddlers. > Do you ever wish the country would fully switch to metric, or do you find the imperial system second nature? We use metric every day, all the time, for countless tasks. > What's the most annoying calculation you have to do regularly? Explaining this to non-Americans on Reddit. Otherwise, no issues, ever.

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welding_guy_from_LI@reddit

I deal with both imperial and metric every day .. it’s very easy to switch.. change would cost billions and cause too many issues .. people think it’s just learning , but signs would have to change , the hardware for the signs would have to change , business and taxpayers would gave to swallow the costs .. not to mention the learning curve and the mistakes that are inevitable..

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benkatejackwin@reddit

But what's with your punctuation?

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HorseFeathersFur@reddit

They might be Gen X ?

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Low-Landscape-4609@reddit

It's not confusing to Americans but it makes no sense why we still use it. Then again, I don't understand why we don't use military time. It makes more sense to me.

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Appalachian_Aioli@reddit

I mean, I can’t visualize cups I can visualize ounces from an 8oz of coke. I can visualize pints from beer and gallons from milk. Cups? I see that measurement in a recipe and I’m running vibes and the grace of god.

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AdFinancial8924@reddit

A cup is 8oz though.

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Appalachian_Aioli@reddit

Listen, I have two masters degrees. I’m an educated man. Maybe at one point I knew this, in the Halcyon days of whatever grade I learned my unit conversion. Yet, here I am, showing my whole ass.

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Mad-Hettie@reddit

Just a note: none of your listed measurements are metric there. If you were using metric it's mL or L for fluid measurement.

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docmoonlight@reddit

If you can picture 8 oz of Coke, you can picture a cup. A cup is 8 oz.

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Acceptable_Tea3608@reddit

If only that 8 ozs of coke was a cup.

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albertnormandy@reddit

If only they made cups with lines on them used to measure out ingredients… one day. A man can dream.

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Appalachian_Aioli@reddit

Yeah, but then I have to dig them out of a drawer and then wash a new utensil afterwards.

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albertnormandy@reddit

That problem would exist with the metric system too.

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WrongJohnSilver@reddit

The most difficult part is visualizing an acre in square feet/miles.

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Vurnd55@reddit

After using metric in science classes in HS and college I can't understand why the USA hasn't adopted it (except for the scientific and medical communities). I think it is largely due to our national arrogance that we cling to an outdated, arbitrary and isolating system.

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cdb03b@reddit

There is no confusion. It is the system used daily so it is easily understood.

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HorseFeathersFur@reddit

I use metric all the time as a sourdough baker.

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-Boston-Terrier-@reddit

Do we start with at the balls or the shaft?

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Rarewear_fan@reddit

I could never fully memorize liquid weights like cups to pints to gallons, etc. Measurements and temperature I have no issue with.

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geneb0323@reddit

>I could never fully memorize liquid weights like cups to pints to gallons, etc. It's made more difficult because we stopped commonly using some measurements and changed the definition of some others. Originally it went as follows: 1 gallon = 2 pottles; 1 pottle = 2 quarts; 1 quart = 2 pints; 1 pint = 2 cups; 1 cup = 2 gills; 1 gill = 2 jiggers; 1 jigger = 2 ounces; 1 ounce = 2 tablespoons. We stopped using pots, gills, and jiggers commonly (though they are still units of measurement) so now we are left with: 1 gallon = 4 quarts; 1 quart = 2 pints; 1 pint = 2 cups; 1 cup = 8 ounces; 1 ounce = 2 tablespoons. Still the same, but a bit harder to follow because of all of the missing links.

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Nan_Mich@reddit

You taught me something new today and explained why our system is janky! Thanks!

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Rarewear_fan@reddit

lol that explains things very well!

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CuriousOptimistic@reddit

I've got all the ones from cups upward, sometimes I get screwed on teaspoons and tablespoons

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ToughFriendly9763@reddit

i don't think it's that confusing, but ounces and fluid ounces were a bit when i first learned them.

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stochasticInference@reddit

"a pint is a pound, the world around" (translation: 16 fl.oz of water weighs 16 oz)

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OverSearch@reddit

Even that isn't strictly true. A gallon of water - 128 fluid ounces - weighs a bit over 133 ounces.

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ToughFriendly9763@reddit

yes, i know, but that is only true for water. a cup of flour doesn't weigh 8 oz. I'm not confused by the difference now, just a bit confusing when i learned the units as a kid.

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count-brass@reddit

I agree. At first I didn’t understand that they were different things.

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Nan_Mich@reddit

The system we use in the US is based on body measurements. Take your typical 1800’s man. An inch is roughly the distance between his knuckles when he bends his index finger tightly closed. A yard is the distance from his nose or chin, to the end of his outstretched arm. A foot is roughly the length of his forearm. And, you measure a horse’s height in “hands,” which are around 4”, and is the width of his palm, so you can easily and quickly measure it by repeatedly moving your hands sideways from the ground to its withers. Oh - and the US mint has conveniently placed a half-foot measurement in your pocket. A dollar bill is 6” long (very handy when you come across the perfect chest for the foyer, but don’t have your tape measure with you.) Yes, these are rough measuring tools. Each individual, though can know how they vary from the norm and do a quick calculation in their head to get very close to a real measurement. “Four yards plus 10%, because I am a small person,” or “I need to subtract 20% to that because my arm is so long,”

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StupidLemonEater@reddit

I'll admit that I find it impossible to remember how many feet are in a mile.

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JohnMarstonSucks@reddit

Basic measurement is pretty easy. I'll need to look up teaspoon/tablespoon/ounce conversions every now and then when I'm baking though.

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BringBackApollo2023@reddit

Woodworking and measuring in fraction of an inch then adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing, especially if I’m mixing denominators—8ths, 16ths, 32nds—is ripe for errors. Such a pain in the ass. I downloaded an app to do the math for me.

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geneb0323@reddit

Never struggled with it and still don't. That's like asking if someone struggles with speaking their native language. Most of the schools I went to covered the metric system in our physics classes alongside US customary so I am plenty familiar with both and have little trouble code switching when needed. However, I absolutely hate celsius as a temperature scale. It is fine for temperatures on a scientific scale, but it makes absolutely no sense when dealing with day-to-day temperatures. Where I live you generally see seasonal temperature swings from about 5 degrees to about 105 degrees (with some rare outliers on either side). In celsius that would be a range of -15 to 40.56 degrees. Those numbers just don't make sense to me and I can't remotely figure out what that would feel like without converting to fahrenheit.

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FormerlyDK@reddit

I have no problem with US measurement. I can easily visualize how long 6 feet is, but 182.88 cm means nothing to me.

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trae_curieux@reddit

I didn't have any issues learning the US customary units (the common ones, at least...I don't think I've ever used chains or furlongs as units of distance, for example) when they were taught to us in elementary school. That said, I've always been a proponent of metrication: it was always ridiculous to me to use one system in day-to-day life and an entirely different one in science courses, all of which permitted only metric units (and some, like physics, required answers to be submitted using only the SI subset) when I took them.

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GhostOfJamesStrang@reddit

It's not hard when it's what you know. I can do metric and US in my head with ease.

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used-to-have-a-name@reddit

Yes. I’m always struggling to remember how many miles of baking soda to add to my cookie recipe. 😅 /s Seriously though, it’s just different. Once you learn it as a kid, it feels normal. And there isn’t really much conversion calculation happening… maybe, converting decimal fractions of a foot into inches. Like, 1.5 feet is 1 foot 6 inches, but 1.6 feet is 1 foot 7 1/5 inches.

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Jasnah_Sedai@reddit

The only benefit of the metric system I see is grams when baking. But, if I’m baking I’m using a scale anyway. But I doubt anyone can reliably eyeball 100g vs. 120g, so I don’t think I’m at a disadvantage there.

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DiscontentDonut@reddit

I have never, and most likely will never, be able to convert much smaller to much larger scales. I have to Google how many feet are in a mile every single time. I get that a ton is 2k pounds, but I never comprehend how heavy things really are when they're measured in tons. I can do liquid ounces any day of the week, but dry ounces mean nothing to me. Have to Google teaspoons to tablespoons to cups. Once it gets to cups, I can then do pints, quarts, gallons. The worst part about the imperial system, as I'm sure literally everyone on the planet above the age of 9 knows, is that none of the conversions make sense. They're not rounded numbers like metric. Metric is easy. 10s, 100s, 1,000s. Imperial, why is it 12 inches and not 10 or 15 in a foot? Why is it 5,280 feet in a mile (googled it) and not 5k? Or even 5,250? Why the extra 30? Why 8 oz in a cup and not 10? Or 5? If these systems weren't set up long before the current technology, I would believe a conspiracy theory that major tech corps made our measurements purposefully impossible to first sell calculators, then later to make phones detrimental. They just got lucky it happened that way. But honestly, I can't visually fathom most measurements unless it's right in front of me. I've even debated getting a ruler tattoo to just constantly have one on me.

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TooManyCarsandCats@reddit

It’s not the “US measurement system”, it’s the imperial system. Never struggled learning how many whatever’s in a whatever, I can remember things. I will vote against anyone who even suggest switching to metric. The most annoying calculation I do on a regular basis is feet to inches, and it’s not bad at all.

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Jasnah_Sedai@reddit

We use the US customary system, which is slightly different will than the imperial system. The imperial system has the ridiculous “stone” measurement.

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CaptainAwesome06@reddit

But it's not the imperial system. It's the US Customary system.

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Highway_Man87@reddit

It's not really confusing when you grow up using it, however, I do wish we would switch to the metric system. In my opinion, it's a superior system of measurement to our imperial system. However, I don't think most of my fellow Americans will agree with me on that. I don't know that it was ever really annoying, but buying and selling certain illicit substances used to be a little weird, because we would buy in imperial measurements, but weigh in them out in grams. i.e. 1 ounce is ~28 grams, so an eighth ounce is about 3.5 grams, and a quarter is 7 grams.

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cheezeitsnackmix@reddit

We start learning it so young that its not really something a lot of us think about, I think. Lots of Americans know the metric system too, its used basically anywhere science related so I also was taught metric in school. It was just assumed that we'd know the US system and metric in my college here. Most annoying conversion is Fahrenheit to Celsius for me though. Can't ever remember the conversation formula, but I have a general idea of what the temperature is in F if im given it in C for reference

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NatsFan8447@reddit

Americans just grow up using the US measuring system and don't give much thought to it. I doubt that the US will go fully metric anytime soon. However, metric is used exclusively in medicine, science, some manufacturing (autos primarily) and,, I believe, the US military. For over 40 years, wine and spirits legally can only be sold in the US in metric sizes, the standard bottle being 750 ml.

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albertnormandy@reddit

I have no trouble with it. The only time converting units is a pain is when something is in metric and I have to convert to metric. For most people doing basic life tasks metric is not any better. Only in the scientific fields do the issues with US units appear.

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SteveMarck@reddit

Most of my kitchen stuff stuff has metric on it too. That helps. But I agree standard is easier for kitchen stuff because I want to half things more than tenth them.

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ArbysLunch@reddit

I can usually ballpark a metric conversion in my head. I also set my weather apps to celcius. The conversions are not that difficult, and I didn't bother picking up metric until I was in the military. Ahh yes, that bastion of freedom units, the US Army. With its' 5.56x45mm rifle cartridges, 9mm pistol rounds, 120mm tank shells and 155mm arty. Oh wai....

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Raddatatta@reddit

It's not really a struggle once you've learned it and it's intuitive which is the tricky part. Logically I know the metric system has a lot of advantages but I have a good sense of what a mile is or what it feels like when it's 40F outside and I don't have the same degree of instantly knowing for metric units. I would learn and I kind of which we'd switched over at some point, but it would also be a process of relearning that I'm not super motivated to do.

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brak-0666@reddit

It's not confusing at all. I don't need to calculate any of those sorts of measurements in my daily life unless I'm halving or doubling a recipe which is pretty easy.

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3X_Cat@reddit

I really dislike a tape measure that's broken down into 16ths of an inch! For most wood projects, I'd like to see millimeters.

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Peregrine415@reddit

When buying pots and pans online. The sizes are expressed in quarts, so I often end up with something either too big or too small.

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Quenzayne@reddit

How it oscillates between metric and customary. Until I moved abroad, I was never sure which was which a lot of the time.

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dontdoxmebro@reddit

The most confusing part to me is why people on Reddit insist on incorrectly saying we use Imperial Measurements when we actually use our own system of measurements.

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screenaholic@reddit

I'm 31 years old and I have never once been able to remember how many feet are in a mile. I think it's three thousand something. Such a random number. I absolutely support switching to metric, EXCEPT for temperature. Fahrenheit is superior to Celsius for every day use.

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Plastic_Kangaroo675@reddit

The confusing part is the same that metric users that have been exposed to imperial have, and that’s while you intellectually understand what the unit is, you have no idea if 70F is jacket or shorts weather without translating to your familiar unit first.

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Ok_Bell_44@reddit

No struggle learning them as they are second nature. The most annoying calculation is if non-Americans who ask about US customary units and their use are genuinely curious or attempting smug superiority because they can’t fathom how any American can be intelligent enough to do non-Base 10 when they are only fed a diet of how stupid Americans must be as a coping mechanism by their cultures. That one is a really annoying calculation that I HATE doing every time this question is asked.

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RodrickJasperHeffley@reddit

miles thing is annoying

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El_Polio_Loco@reddit

Why? It’s a long enough distance to not be particularly easily referenced to anything easily recognizable. But the same goes for kilometers.

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No-Bee5337@reddit

Why would I be confused by something I've used my entire life?

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El_Polio_Loco@reddit

Teaspoons, tablespoons, cups, pints, and quarts were the most difficult for me to get around. I still need to look up how many teaspoons make a tablespoon. Beyond that it’s all relatively simple. Though for my work I sometimes need to convert fractions to decimals, which is annoying.

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AdFinancial8924@reddit

No. Signs, rulers, speedometers, scales, measuring cups, thermometers all exist. It’s all done for us.

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Prestigious-Name-323@reddit

Why would the system that I’ve been using my entire life be confusing?

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Jumpy-Benefacto@reddit

we use both daily

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HidingInTrees2245@reddit

I’m sure metric would have been easier to learn because it makes better sense, but now that I’ve been using Imperial my whole life, it’s hard for me to learn mm, ml, km, etc. I’m trying though.

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Comfortable-Tell-323@reddit

That we tried metric and got stuck in some weird limbo. You can buy soda in 8, 12,16,20 and 24oz or in 1,2, or 3 litres. Liquor is sold in metric beer in imperial. Temperature in F but absolute temp in Kelvin. Yes I'd rather we switch to metric but change is hard for most people so it won't happen anytime soon

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Dalton387@reddit

The only thing I tend to have a little trouble with is converting fractions on the fly. I measure something and want to say 2/16ths. Someone invariably says, “You mean, 1/8th?!” Yeah. It just takes an extra second to convert and seems inefficient. I probably just need to spend the time mentally marking them as their reduced number so I just know it as that, but it usually doesn’t seem worth the effort.

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Adorable-Growth-6551@reddit

The math sucks. But beyond that, i know what a mile is, i know what a foot is, they are all second nature to me. Honestly one of the bigger problems people wanting the change have is the way our road infrastructure is laid out. Most of the US is laid out in square miles. Each intersection you come to is another mile.

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Totodile386@reddit

Volume, such as remembering how many teaspoons are a tablespoon, how many cups are in a pint are in a gallon, and the difference between an ounce and a fl. oz.

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Stachemaster86@reddit

I do woodworking and while I can do the fractions, splitting things, finding a centering spot for hanging a picture based on where the mounting clip is and where I want to have the top of the frame is a challenge. I have 4 beer mirrors that were different hanging tensions and to space, level and hang was a math course to get them to all line up once hung. Thickness is another. I can do it, but it’s a bit more mental jumping

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BuildNuyTheUrbanGuy@reddit

Nothing.

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sideshow--@reddit

The most annoying calculation I have to do is from metric to imperial. But I have a phone so it’s not that bad.

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ayebrade69@reddit

I’ve never been inconvenienced by our measurement system

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Illustrious_Hotel527@reddit

When my patient describes how much alcohol consumed, and calculating how many drinks/day it is. I just have to memorize that a fifth of hard liquor is 17 drinks/day, and a handle is about 40 drinks/day.

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