Why has American soft power not managed to spread US Customary Units around more?
Posted by crivycouriac@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 157 comments
Despite American culture being universal everywhere around the world, I’ve not really seen anyone outside of the Anglosphere use feet and inches to express their height, let alone pounds for weight or degrees Fahrenheit. Even Poland, which is very pro-US and the birthplace of Fahrenheit himself, does not use degrees Fahrenheit in any capacity. Why is that?
SteampunkExplorer@reddit
Okay, so... I would definitely not say that our culture is universal. A lot of our pop culture and some of our material culture have been spread to other places, but we're not trying to force our way of life on people. 🥲
And people still come to visit and experience culture shock, LOL.
wwhsd@reddit
Contrary to popular belief, we use a lot of metric.
CinquecentoX@reddit
I would be curious to hear some examples that you think the average American uses. I find most don’t know much outside of 2 liters of soda.
Ninja0428@reddit
Nutrition facts are in grams
Yards and meters are near interchangeable
Engine displacement is in liters
Data storage is essentially metric
SlippingAwayWith@reddit
Time is also metric, especially seconds.
bellegroves@reddit
Swatch beats were metric. Seconds and hours are based on 60, not 100.
DepressedPancake4728@reddit
every college kid knows how to convert between grams and ounces
Dangerous-Safe-4336@reddit
You almost never have to, unless your controlling your diet and you have to figure serving sizes from package labels.
allochthonous_debris@reddit
- many sports including track and field, cross country running and skiing, swimming, soccer, cycling, and triathlon
- science and engineering classes
- nutrition labels on food and beverages
- dosage for medications
- car parts
ian9921@reddit
millimeters are the go-to unit of really small measurement. Grams get used for all sorts of things. And that's just off the top of my head
bellegroves@reddit
Bff: I don't know how much a liter is.
Me: really? What size Pepsi did you buy earlier?
BFF: 1L...oh.
Lower_Neck_1432@reddit
3.8L=1 gallon (US)
morbidnerd@reddit
The way I would bring that up every time he argued with me over something
TsundereLoliDragon@reddit
Why would we do that?
Full_Mission7183@reddit
Because Jimmy Carter only had one term.
Lower_Neck_1432@reddit
It's Congress that writes legislation.
Full_Mission7183@reddit
Like the Metric Conversion Act of 1975?
Dave_A480@reddit
We have in aviation (where it's safety-critical that everyone measure altitude in one unit - and because the altimeter was invented in the US, that unit is by-international-treaty mandated as feet).
But don't really care everywhere else...
Lower_Neck_1432@reddit
Except Russia, which uses meters for altitude and QFE and QNH.
the_real_JFK_killer@reddit
We have no real want to push it onto others and others have no real want to adopt it.
Distinct_Stand5761@reddit
Nobody wants to deal with converting between 12 inches and a foot when you already have system that makes sense in base 10 😂 Like imagine trying to explain to someone why we measure temperature where water freezes at 32 degrees instead of just 0... even us Americans know metric is more logical, we're just too stubborn to change at this point 💀
WhatABeautifulMess@reddit
Fahrenheit is way more useful for day to day life. I literally never need to know the temperature of water. If it's boiling or freezing I can see that. You can call it whatever number you want.
TooManyDraculas@reddit
It's only more useful because you're used to it.
82f isn't any more intuitive than 27.8c when we're talking about the weather. There's no difference between set your oven to 250f and 120c.
They're functionally the same unless you're trying to make a practical thermometer using state of the 18th century tech. As in manufacturing them.
They don't behave much different if you're taking formal measures and doing calculations with them.
They're both decimal measures. The real world doesn't neatly brack by 5 and 10 in either scale.
Fahrenheit was marginally more granular before we had decimal displays. That's about it.
WhatABeautifulMess@reddit
Fahrenheit is intuitive for weather if you consider the scale of typical temperatures 0-100 as a percentage of warmth. It's 75% warm out where I am right now. I never need to work in temperature in any other way and probably won't for the rest of my life.
TooManyDraculas@reddit
It's intuitive for weather if your used to using it for weather. And it's only intuitive if you do.
People who use celcius, have an identically intuitive relationship with celcious for that.
and this:
Is not how it works. Not what it's meant to do or how it was developed. And is just an attempt to rationalize why the thing you're used to feels intuitive. When it feels intuitive cause you're used to it.
Intuitive also means not having to do that sort of rule of thumb conversion. Intuitive means you don't have to think about it. Which happens when you're used to using it.
That also works just as sensibly in in celsius, if not more so. Because that common temperature range you run into for weather, cooking spreads across 100 degrees. Rather than 180f. Which is the version of this argument celsius users make.
MEANWHILE. The range of temperatures for my state last year was -42f/5.5c-107f/41.6c. So a spread of 149 degrees in one scale, and 36.1 in the other. And we hardly have the most extreme weather here.
Neither of those easily breaks down to a percentage, or any kind of rule of thumb. The one you've always used is the one you think in. And that one just makes sense to you.
TheyMakeMeWearPants@reddit
I agree with your points for the most part, but this bit not so much:
The math isn't working here. +42f is 5.5c, not -42f. In which case the spread is 65 degrees, not 149.
OTOH, if you really meant -42f, that would be -41c. And if that's actually what you meant, I'd dispute this:
WhatABeautifulMess@reddit
Admittedly I don’t work outside so anything below freezing makes no difference in my life in any way practical way so I don’t pay attention once my hose bob is off.
TooManyDraculas@reddit
Fahrenheit and Celsius is a different question.
Cause Celsius isn't Metric. Kelvin is the metric unit of temperature.
And temperature isn't subdivided into nested units at all.
Both Fahrenheit and Celsius are actually both decimal/base 10 scales. If you're less a 1 degree order of magnitude it's .1 measures.
It's not like we have 10 degrees to the glop vs 13.
Fahrenheit is the way it is because to make a thermometer back in the day you needed two reliable, replicatable reference temperatures.
The freezing point of water varies with contaminents and it's boiling point with elevation. Which you could not reliably make a thermometer that way any where by sea level. Fahrenheit was developed using the freezing point of a specific brine, the thawing point of pure water and human body temperature. Because those could be replicated anywhere.
Celcius only really sub divides neatly by 10s when you look at just the boiling point of water vs the freezing point. Which by the point it was developed had become practical ways of setting a scale. In the way they weren't for Fahrenheit.
Which is why he used them. Not cause it made sense, but because it was easier to independently reproduce the scale.
It in no way maps that cleanly to any thing else. And if you're actually calculating things with these scales. You're not getting anymore nice round numbers out of either of them.
Fahrenheits scale gave more whole degrees in the practical scale which had benefits for reading a tube of glass. Celcius' scale was easier to reliably reproduce.
Kelvin which is the actual metric unit here. Doesn't give a shit how sensibly it lines up with boiling and freezing water, except in that it preserves those two reference points by making them 100 degrees apart.
Niether is everything in metric neat base 10. Time and angle measurements are both still in second, minutes, and hours/degrees. Because both fundementally describe the arc of a circle. Which is neatly subdivided in base 12/60, but not in base 10.
Lower_Neck_1432@reddit
Celsius and Kelvin are both SI units, and the degree size is the same, except K is displaced by -273.15 degrees (to set 0 to absolute zero).
Ninja0428@reddit
12 inches in a foot was highly logical at the time it was decided and still isn't particularly hard to deal with. It's hardly the worst offender.
ian9921@reddit
5280 feet in a mile, on the other hand, makes absolutely zero sense and I had to google it
Atlas7-k@reddit
A mile was 1000 paces of a Legion back during the Roman times. It became the basic unit of measurement for travel. Later Britain adjusted the mile to be the length of 8 furlongs. The furlong being the basic length of a furrow and therefore of a field. And 8 being a number with greater divisions than 7.6.
4Q69freak@reddit
But there are 320 rods to the mile. There are 16.5 feet in a rod. We rarely use rods anymore except in the length of a canoe portage, and agriculture when measuring fence. Most woven wire fence comes in a 330ft or 20rod roll.
Arleare13@reddit
The Celsius scale of 0-100 makes sense for precisely one use case, which is for two specific temperatures of water. Outside that one area, there is no advantage or disadvantage to the particular scales of Celsius or Fahrenheit. There is, however, an advantage to the greater gradation of whole-number temperatures in Fahrenheit.
I'm with you on everything else -- 100 centimeters in a meter is much better than 12 inches in a foot. Base 10 is a superior system to Base-whatever each individual customary unit uses. But on temperature, it's just fact that Fahrenheit is better than Celsius for most purposes.
count_strahd_z@reddit
Fahrenheit degrees are a better scale for measuring average temperatures for weather for example with 0 very cold, 100 very hot. 32 is freezing water, 64 is comfortable, 96 is near human body temperature. You have to use fractions of degrees less. You have to use negative degrees less. Using Celsius makes the most sense for scientific experimentation and the like.
round_a_squared@reddit
This. Despite generating a lot of sturm & drang in Internet arguments, using imperial vs metric units doesn't really matter much in everyday life. Even we use metric in a lot of areas: for example the average American grocery store is a complete mix between measuring things in gallons, ounces, and liters
TooManyDraculas@reddit
Because they're all regulated, taxed, packaged, and tracked in liters and grams.
Packaging remains labelled in, and sizes determined by USC because customers are used to it. But all that legally required labelling has to be in metric.
rhino369@reddit
Technically, it has to be in both sets of units.
TooManyDraculas@reddit
Technically it's taxed, tracked and otherwise interacts with regulation in metric. So that's the primary, and the USC measures are often just conversions. For the most part these are metric till it comes to packaging (and freight).
Agricola20@reddit
The way I’ve come to see it is that:
Science/research is almost entirely in metric.
The average citizen uses imperial/Fahrenheit for their every day use (though metric measures are included on many tools/packages/whatever).
Engineering, which is essentially the interface between science and every day use by citizens, is a real clusterfuck of both imperial and metric units. This varies by specific field of engineering, though, so ymmv.
TooManyDraculas@reddit
More over the US is pretty much officially metric. Most things on the government side operate in metric, almost every aspect of industry has converted, the sciences and most regulations are all metric. It's just sort of legacy stuff that remains.
So it's scattered things and common usage where USC hangs on. And we even formally standardize those measures in metric.
The period where we were "expressing soft power" is the same period we were actively metricating, and aside from just how difficult it is to get people to switch measurement systems. Why the hell would we be promoting the use of a system we've deliberately moving away from for like a century?
Europeans have weird ideas about the US and Metric. We gave the metric system formal standing in 1866, that was a year before the Convention of the Metre that established the modern international standard. When only 11 countries had adopted it, and France had actually adopted it, discarded it and adopted a different version of it. We were the first country outside of France to consider it, got delayed by the standard models getting pirated, then stuck with what we had after France had massive issues with adoption.
The US has used metric to some extent as long as it's existed. And as goes right now we're technically a metric country, and everyone gets taught and at least occasionally uses metric.
We formally adopted it as an official measurement system in 1975. We just also kept USC as an official standard, and didn't force conversion. The US Government formally adopted it as it's primary (and eventually to be only) system in 1991.
No one needs to convert to interact with us anymore, and when that might have been a thing our active interest was making the change ourselves instead.
Rogue-Architect@reddit
I would be very curious to see how you decided that almost every aspect of industry has changed? In my field, it isn't even 5% and I work in one of the largest industries in the world.
Lower_Neck_1432@reddit
The US didn't have the capacity for "soft" (or even "hard") power until well into the 20th century (after WWI), and the metric system was adopted before then.
Minimum-Syrup7420@reddit
It's some weird things only a few places use. We don't push it and our international efforts just use the metric system.
jub-jub-bird@reddit
Because America isn't trying to promote US Customary units and because they're not customary anywhere else other than the UK from which we inherited them.
One of the main reason metric was widely adopted wasn't because the standard was easier or made more sense but simply because it was a standard at all. In many nations and especially in France customer units were not precisely defined but only rough vague measures with even those rough definitions changing regionally and with competing precise definitions used in different industries or by different government office as each found itself in need of a more precise measure. Replacing all that chaos with a nice neat strictly defined metric alternative was a no brainer.
But not a bit less so in the UK which by contrast had already standardized it's own formerly vague customary units well before metric came along and even less so in the USA which not only inherited those standards but in addition also had thousands of miles of ocean between itself and anyone using anything different.
OldBlueKat@reddit
We may have ‘stuck’ with the older measurement systems (outside of scientific circles) as the rest of the world changed over, but it’s not like it’s a religious need. We don’t need to evangelize and convince everyone else they’re “wrong”.
We just balked at converting a lot of existing industries, records, etc.
It took the UK a while to get used to not using Imperial measurements—they were most responsible for creating them to begin with!
JudgeWhoOverrules@reddit
You do realize the British imperial system was only created in the 1920s, over 40 years after we split from them? Us Customary system differs from the imperial system on several units.
Just because both systems were derived from even earlier English traditional units doesn't make them the same.
OldBlueKat@reddit
They may have formalized it then, but measuring things by ‘the kings foot’, etc existed for centuries before that. Yards and pounds and rods and miles and quarts and acres have been in the records since documenting goods and real estate started in ancient Britannia.
TooManyDraculas@reddit
And didn't originate in the UK/England. That's way older. Europe seems to have gotten it from the greeks. Britain specifically from the old Germanic versions. And in terms of early modern British customary units, IIRC that was a descendant of the French pre-metric system.
That traditional British system is what came over to the early colonies, but we standardized it with modern methods independently, before they did. It was one of the first major things congress was up to after the revolution, and we came pretty close to adopting the Metric system instead.
OldBlueKat@reddit
I knew most of what everyone has thrown into this, but I’m slightly surprised my snarky response to the post headline triggered so many extended essays on systems of weights and measures.
And all because I was sloppy in my reference to “Imperial.”
Swimming-Book-1296@reddit
Yes but it didn’t mean anything standard. It wasn’t until the 20th century that an inch was standardized, every single ruler manufacturer and parts manufacturer had a different definition of an inch untill Henry ford forced them to standardize.
TooManyDraculas@reddit
Imperial /= USC.
They have a common root, as did the pre-metric French system. But they're different, incompatible systems. And IIRC USC was actually formalized before the Imperial system was. Inspired by Metric, which we opted not to adopt at the time because France was going through an epic shit show on that front.
Forcibly transitioning measurement system is borderline impossible. The UK who also started formal modern metrication after the US, and didn't have the earlier baseline in allowing it's official use we did (from 1886!). Also still uses a mix of measures.
While the US just kinda uses Metric while Europe isn't looking. "The Metric System is EVIL" is still a bit of political runner in the UK, part of the whole "Fuck the EU they kicked my dog and took my pints" thing that fueled Brexit.
OldBlueKat@reddit
You’re not the first here to “well, akshully” my bit of snark.
The various systems were also discussed a bit. And the US similarly split into the “I don’t eat and drink in grams and mils” crowd (usually with more colorful expletives) and those of us who took STEM classes in college.
The history of rods and chains is kinda fun.
Different_Bridge_983@reddit
U.S. customary units have overlap with Imperial units, but are not identical.
Notable divergences are gallons, quarts, pints and fluid oz are all significantly different between the two systems, as are the hundredweight and tons that derive from it.
The two systems also don’t use various groupings - eg stones and kips.
OldBlueKat@reddit
Don’t forget rods.
I wasn’t going to nitpick the details, just using the offset from metric being the larger point.
I’m always amused how many Brits still do their body weight in stones!
It’s all in what’s familiar.
I’m comfortable using either system, but my brain still balks when a European talks about sweltering in 37 degree weather.
37C =98.6 °F =normal body temperature. But ugly hot weather, especially if it’s humid.
To me, I ‘know’ 37F =2.778 °C =ugly cold and sleety.
If ya gotta go near freezing (0C =32 °F) just go a smidge colder so it’s dry powder snow and you can dress for it easier.
entropynchaos@reddit
Metric is better for most things (with Fahrenheit being an exception for temperature, it is able to more accurately depict small temperature changes in air without using decimals).
count_strahd_z@reddit
Miles are really good for driving distances because at typical highway speeds miles are approximately minutes. 60 mph is close to highway speed. So it would take you 60 minutes to go 60 miles. But that's approximately 100 km.
entropynchaos@reddit
That makes sense.
getElephantById@reddit
I swear, people outside the U.S. thinks so much more about our units of measurement than we ever do.
FrankDrebinOnReddit@reddit
Changing units is tough. You can see it in the UK and Canada where they went metric but continue to use a mix of imperial and metric units.
TooManyDraculas@reddit
The US technically metricated in 1975, we just took a relatively slow gentle approach to it. We formally adopted Metric, but did not formally drop USC so they're both official measure systems.
Taiwan metricated after that, as goes large, economically important countries. Then Hong Kong, Macau, Jamaica and other commonwealth/former colonies. Which are small areas, but population dense. . Myanmar and Liberia are both currently metricating, they're following a US model of running with both for a while.
machagogo@reddit
Englands influence is where it's at, and you'll notice many of the English speaking places still use at least a hybrid of Imperial/Metric.
Don't let those Brits, Canucks, Aussie's etc stell you otherwise.
Illustrious-Shirt569@reddit
Yep. My English family member all have body weight scales that show stones. They also buy their produce by the pound in most shops, but buy and measure out their flour, sugar, and butter in grams or kilograms.
mprhusker@reddit
They buy fuel in liters but measure their fuel efficiency in miles per gallon but their gallon is a bit bigger than ours so their fuel economy looks better when it's actually the same. Speed and distance is in miles except when it's small distances in which case it's meters unless driving then it's yards. Height in feet/inches, weight in stone/lbs but your doctor wants you to give it to them in cm and kgs.
It's just not very consistent here. Don't let Brits ever claim to be just like "tHe ReSt Of ThE wOrLd" because they aren't. The only consistent metric unit they all use is Celsius but even then those who are 60+ probably used Fahrenheit until they were teenagers.
andmewithoutmytowel@reddit
I mean, nobody's stopping them. I assume people that consume a lot of US media have a rough idea. They've probably figured out that 5' is basically 150cm, 6' is basically 180cm, and 1" is about 2.5cm then they can work it out from there.
Miles and km are a 5:8 ratio, so if someone says something is 100 miles away, that's 160km. 50mph is 80kph, etc.
It's 2.2 lbs per Kilo, so a 220lb person weighs 100kg, if something weighs 500kg it's 1100 lbs.
I was at a trade show talking with a manufacturer's engineer, and at one point he told me "I only know the load rating in metric" so I told him I could convert it in my head. In that case it was 1000kg and I told him it was 2200 lbs, or 1.1 Imperial tons.
GaryJM@reddit
An Imperial ton (the long ton) is 2240 pounds. A US customary ton (the short ton) is 2000 pounds. The Imperial one comes from it being twenty long hundredweight and each hundredweight is eight stone and each stone is fourteen pounds. The US system uses the short hundredweight of one hundred pounds and twenty of those comes out to 2000 pounds.
Academic_Profile5930@reddit
Probably because metric is much easier to use (converting centimeters to meters, etc.). The US has had some attempt to switch to metric and be in sync with the rest of the world (gas being sold by liters instead of gallons in the 1970s for instance) but this has met with widespread resistance and soon been dropped. Americans tend to resist the metric system mainly because it's hard for us to visualize a lot of metric measures. We're getting used to some since pop and liquor are sold in liter bottles rather than quarts and fun runs are measured in kilometers rather than miles now. In school, what we mostly learn about metric is how to convert it to imperial. Those formulas are a real pain and tend to make us feel not so positive about the metric system. IMO we Americans are just to stubborn to bite the bullet and switch totally over to metric. I could say the same about our way of writing dates. Everyone except the military goes with month-day-year instead of day-month-year.
Chimpbot@reddit
What most people outside of the US don't understand is that we use both Imperial and Metric on a daily basis. When it comes to any given industrial applications, anything we'd be producing that would see international use will utilize metric measurements. Even internally, we use both almost interchangeably.
Martinonfire@reddit
What a lot of people inside the US don’t seem to realise is that their money is based on a metric system
GreenBeanTM@reddit
Cool. Why are we supposed to care about that?
TooManyDraculas@reddit
We decimalized out currency before the metric system existed. Metric doesn't mean "decimal", it's a specific set of measures. And actually everyone talking about Celsius up in here is missing that.
Celsius isn't metric. Kelvin is the metric measure of temperature. Celsius is it's own, different thing that didn't come from or with metric.
SlippingAwayWith@reddit
What people globally don’t seem to realize is that all US Customary Units are standardized using metric. We’re also taught metric.
ALoungerAtTheClubs@reddit
It's a base-ten system, but it's a little anachronistic to call it metric, when the Metric Convention dates to 1875.
Chimpbot@reddit
I have a feeling this felt like more of a "Gotcha!" than it actually is.
damutecebu@reddit
Uh...so?
FreeStateOfPortland@reddit
You spelled realize wrong
ian9921@reddit
Honestly it's funny because Europeans in these discussions seem care a whole lot more than anyone in the US does.
JimDemintRecession@reddit
Yeah. I heard people the other day discussing how much a case of bottled waters weighs. It was 40 half-liter bottles. The person said that makes it 20 kilos plus the bottles. It's pretty natural to just switch to whatever's easier than remembering the mass in pounds of a liter of water.
GreenBeanTM@reddit
Why don’t other countries use our measurement system?
1) because we don’t care about people using other systems like metric people do
2) why would we know why other countries haven’t adopted our systems? We’re not them.
SpinosaurRingTone@reddit
Americans use or at least learn both systems so when dealing with other countries we can easily adapt to the metric system.
Less-Mood-3616@reddit
It’s incredibly difficult to learn another system of measurement after childhood.
JPflyer6@reddit
I would argue that for soft power to work, it has to be introduced and appealing...say for instance your favorite American burger joint has a burger called a "Quarter Pounder with Cheese" and the only way for you to order this tasty burger would be to call it a quarter pounder with cheese...and you found yourself thinking...man, that is just the right amount of tasty deliciousness, I wish my local meat shop sold beef in quarter pound increments.
These seems absurd, I know but...my point is there is no American pressure being applied for this, whatsoever.
sessamekesh@reddit
As far as I can tell there's not really any motivation to do so?
We don't need to eradicate Celsius to prefer using Fahrenheit at home.
I'm more baffled by why so many people who don't visit the US seem to care that we don't use the metric system.
Different_Bridge_983@reddit
Some American mom: writes a baking recipe:
R /shitamericanssay: rageguy.jpg
4Q69freak@reddit
Try reading some of my maternal grandmother’s (born in 1898) recipes…she used pinch, smidge, and dash. BTW a pinch is 1/32 of a teaspoon, a smidge (or smidgeon) is 1/16 of a teaspoon roughly .3 grams salt), and a dash is 1/8 of a teaspoon.
Lugbor@reddit
Because we're different and scary to them, all because we use different numbers to measure things.
4Q69freak@reddit
They don’t realize that most Americans understand Metric way better than others understand American standard measurements. The only measurement I ever have to look up is Celsius. When converting in my head I know there’s roughly 30cm in a foot, a yard is slightly shorter than a meter, a liter is slightly larger than a quart, etc.
The one that kills me is that Brits use stone/lbs as a body weight, instead of just lbs or kg.
FreeStateOfPortland@reddit
Also, Fahrenheit is a superior measurement for ambient temperature. Celsius is excellent for scientific uses. But Fahrenheit is in fact a base 100 for ambient temp and Europeans seem to not understand that.
sessamekesh@reddit
I agree kinda, it's more of a preference thing. I like Fahrenheit because I'm used to it.
I think Celcius is just as arbitrary though. With other metric units, things at least convert really smoothly around so it makes sense to use in math and science, but both Fahrenheit and Celcius are just memorizing a bunch of useful numbers.
If Celcius was defined to start with 0 at absolute zero (like Kelvin is) and pinned its temperature changes to the Joule I'd be more impressed.
FreeStateOfPortland@reddit
But who gives a crap what 100 is in Celsius unless you’re a scientist? In your day-to-day life if you had to say it’s “100C out“ it would mean that you’re dead. In F, 100 means hot as fuck, and zero means cold as fuck. It’s cold but 32F is not in and of Itself that cold compared to 10 degrees Fahrenheit
rawbface@reddit
Because we use metric everywhere that matters. Every scientist and engineer in the United States uses the metric system on a daily basis already. We have no need to push our customary units, because we already use the international units.
Different_Bridge_983@reddit
Virtually no structural engineering in the U.S. uses metric.
Even for the occasional fed project where it has to be in metric because the Fed PM didn’t fill out the exception paperwork is usually engineered in U.S. units and then converted to metric on the drawings (305mm think slabs and so on) that are then marked up by the contractor to turn them back into U.S. units.
GOTaSMALL1@reddit
Am commercial GC and deal with Structural, Mechanical, Electrical and Civil engineers. Literally none of them use metric. In fact.. Civil drawings elevations are done in decimal feet.
I also deal with a lot of trims, cabinets, fixtures, furniture etc that are made in China and all comes measured in metric. So I still use it a lot.
MrShake4@reddit
Yeah they lost me at “every engineer uses metric on a daily basis”
I have a structural diagram open right now where everything is in feet, it is about 90 years old though so ymmv.
We use feet for almost everything because everything we already have is in feet.
Also good luck trying to source metric sized sheet metal over here without paying out the ass.
CarelessCreamPie@reddit
Depending on the Engineering, we still use a lot of imperial in Engineering. I see a lot of mixing, for certain properties we might use metric and for others we will use imperial. When two companies work together who use differing units, sometimes both may be used.
Outside of Engineering, I've only seen the sciences in the US exclusively use SI units.
_fenwoods@reddit
cf. the Mars Climate Orbiter disaster
rawbface@reddit
Very true, there is nuance. I worked for a manufacturer and we'd use whichever unit our customers were comfortable with. But when interacting with our factories overseas, we had to convert everything to metric or else they were baffled.
GhostWatcher007@reddit
Actually, several years ago there was an effort to change to metric in the US in order to conform to the rest of the world. Obviously it failed.
No-Lunch4249@reddit
Most of the world was set on metric before the US had a lot of soft power (post ww2)
This one isnt that complex
JenniferJuniper6@reddit
We don’t care. We all know the metric system when it’s needed.
martlet1@reddit
Because F is better than C, but liters is better then gallons. Metric is better for measuring things other than temp.
DarkGamer@reddit
It's obviously an inferior system but there's a lot of resistance to changing it domestically. Just because we do things a certain way doesn't mean we think it's optimal; for example when the US does nation building we don't give them a system of government like our own which we know is flawed.
miketugboat@reddit
Metric is better and already is everywhere. When it comes to the military, aviation, or anything involving space, we already use metric too.
JudgeWhoOverrules@reddit
Non-metric units are heavily used in aviation. Feet for altitude, knots for speed, inches mercury for pressure, etc...
CarelessCreamPie@reddit
I do think there is a time and place for imperial though. I'm not going to say its superior, but much of imperial is a base 12 system which is super useful for scaling.
FreeStateOfPortland@reddit
Altitude is usually measured in feet in aviation
Tacoshortage@reddit
We fully admit the metric system is better in most scientific endeavors and have no real desire to have others use our units. But we also don't want to go to the trouble of re-signing and re-labelling everything in metric when we have no intrinsic understanding of a kilometer or a liter when we have miles and gallons right there.
Demented-Alpaca@reddit
Because the US system of measurements is dumb as shit and nearly useless
A mile is 5,280 feet. Do you know how many US citizens don't know that number because they can't remember it? A foot is 12 inches. An inch has no common sub unit. The closes approximation is to borrow the metric system's sub units like nano-inches.
A yard is 3 feet. Thankfully 5,280 is divisible by 3... A mile is 1,760 yards.
A pound is 16 ounces. An ounce has no sub units. And no, we don't have a deci-ounce or anything. We just have to use fractions.
Water freezes at 32 degrees F and boils at 210 F.
The common theme here is that all of these numbers are arbitrary and have no relation to each other. They make no sense and because of that they're hard to remember, harder yet to work with and inherently nonsensical.
The reason you haven't adopted our bullshit system is because someone, somewhere, presented you with a better option.
Sabertooth767@reddit
And none of those things matter in daily life.
It's not like 1 mile = 5,280 is impossible to remember, we don't remember it because it doesn't matter. There is no situation where I'd rather give you a distance as 1,320 feet rather than .25 miles.
count_strahd_z@reddit
Exactly. It's a stupid argument people make who want to "prove" that metric is better. It's very rare to need to do conversions between most units and easy to look up when you do. The units are different but they work just fine. Better in some cases.
JustATyson@reddit
Thank you! I was just thinking that. I remember that a mile is about 5,000 to 5,200 feet. But, outside of school, I've never needed to know the exact number in a circumstance where I couldn't just look it up quickly. And in my day to day life, I would use half a mile, a quarter of a mile, almost a mile, two thirds of a mile, etc.
So yea, 5,280ft is hard to remember. But, it's also not important to the vast majority of people.
hippiepizzaman@reddit
How would you measure the length of an aircraft carrier deck then?
That's right, it's one carrier long.
crivycouriac@reddit (OP)
Isn’t an ounce divided into drams and grains?
Next-Bit883@reddit
Yes, but are almost exclusively used for firearms measures, some "older" meds, and shots (drams) of scotch whiskey.
CarelessCreamPie@reddit
I'd say the average American has no idea what a dram or grain is. Hell, I don't know what a grain is, and the only reason I know what a dram is, is because I buy 20 dram vials.
Demented-Alpaca@reddit
Not commonly... but probably. It wouldn't surprise me that we have more unintelligible and obscure units that nobody knows about.
And how many people know how much a dram or a grain is? I sure don't.
jactheripper@reddit
It should go to show you if US citizens can’t remember how many feet are in a mile just how often they have to convert it. If you’re in a situation were you’re using the next magnitude of measurement up, why convert it to a smaller one beyond the arbitrary argument that you can? Why would I describe a distance as 10,000 m when 10 km works just fine?
husky_whisperer@reddit
American here. Metric is base-10. Easy peasy.
Imperial is base-(1.8C + 32) and base-(0.62Km) and nobody wants that.
Asleep-Assistant-269@reddit
Nobody would know what you mean by "US Customary Units" without context - I've never heard that term before. It's the Imperial measurement system originating in the UK.
And other countries don't adopt it because it's stupid. Metric and Celsius make way more sense, which is why scientists, medical, etc all us metric. The US would change if it weren't such a pain on the ass and expensive to change everything. And we probably still should regardless.
dwwhiteside@reddit
When the metric system was developed most of the world took a look and said, "Hey, that makes a LOT of sense, let's do that." But not the good ol' U.S. of A. No, we said, "Thanks for the brilliant innovation, but we're sticking with the shitty system we already know." So while the whole world knows there are 100 centimeters in a meter, 1,000 meters in a kilometer, and water freezes at 0°C and boils at 100°C, most people in the U.S. cannot tell you without looking it up how many feet there are in a mile.
SlippingAwayWith@reddit
The US was one of the first to sign the Treaty of the Metre, in 1874. What are you talking about?
count_strahd_z@reddit
If it accurately measures things and the people using the system understand it, it's not a "shitty system". It's just different. Say you are cutting a bunch of boards to a given length. You make the first one and then use the other as a template. That template is a new unit. It doesn't matter what the standard unit is.
And the decimal conversions aren't a big deal. People aren't doing a lot of feet to mile conversions for example. I'll never have to tell someone that my friend lives 32,600 feet away or something. And if they need to and don't know the conversion formula, the internet has all of the tools to do so.
And of course, the US uses the metric system all of the time. The rest of the world just likes to pretend we don't because we also use other measuring units that are convenient or traditional/cultural.
tyoma@reddit
This is plainly untrue. The metric system took about a hundred years to reach adoption even in France, where it was first created, and even then it was by overwhelming government force: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication
Local communities had measures that were meaningful to them and had little interest in adopting arbitrary units created by bureaucrats in Paris, who only wanted the new units to better collect (more) taxes from the rural population.
kabekew@reddit
Because metric is the universal measurement system for almost all countries, plus science, medicine and engineering. If anything the US would want to try to switch to that rather than vice-versa (we did try in the 1970's but it just wasn't accepted).
GlobalTapeHead@reddit
I’m an American engineer, we use the metric system every day. And imperial units suck. 🤷🏻 I mean they are quaint and interesting but not as practical.
Also, the US made a very strong push to move to the metric system in the late 1970s. It didn’t stick at all, but there are parts of industries where it did have some effect. Asking the rest of the world to go backwards and use our units of measurement is really American arrogance.
SlippingAwayWith@reddit
Americans aren’t asking anyone to use US Customary. So, why write “is really American arrogance” at all?
yodellingllama_@reddit
Because the metric system is objectively better. The real question is why we hold on so hard to such a dumb system.
damutecebu@reddit
Nah. Our system is fine because it gets the point accross. Just because something is base 10, that doesn't mean it's "better."
Rogue-Architect@reddit
It is hard to explain the value of the normal daily attributes vs the scientific attributes where the base 10 system allows conversion to be almost infinitely easier.
A centimeter is a very small measure and not near as useful as an inch for visualization. The next standard measure is a meter which is far too large for normal use particularly when compared to a foot. A foot is about the size of a foot, something we all know very intimately. How tall are you? About 1 meter and 98 centimeters or 6 feet 6 inches.
I will say that when you start measuring really small things, the metric system becomes much more useful because you can work in mm as opposed to fractions of an inch but again this isn’t as common in daily life.
Weight would be subject to what is important to you.
Temperature is again much more useful with Fahrenheit because of the usable scale in normal life. If you tell me is it in the 30s (C) that could mean a slightly hot day at 86 F or it could mean a really hot day at 102F. If I say it is in the 70s (F) that could mean ever so slightly chilly 21 C or ever so slightly warm at 26 C.
From an international perspective, it seems more valuable to have the scientific measurements be easier to convert than it would be for normal daily use. It is kind of the best of both worlds in my opinion because we get the better system for daily use and the scientific community doesn’t fall apart. Win win unless you aren’t American.
FreeStateOfPortland@reddit
Fahrenheit is in fact a base 100 system for human/ambient temperature. When describing temperatures and the comfort level for the average human, it’s a far better measurement system than metric.
Celsius is of course far better for scientific use.
Vegetable_Fly_8687@reddit
Unlike way too many non-Americans on this site, Americans don’t typically care what units of measure other countries use. If anything the ones who do care, mostly care cause they’d like to use metric.
butter_milk@reddit
When you grow up using a system of measurement, you develop an innate sense of what the measures are. You’ve picked up weights, been measured, walked along a football field, checked the weather forecast, etc, enough times that you have an intrinsic sense of what the measurements mean in a real, tactile way. So, for example, an American knows that a five foot brick wall is probably too tall to climb over, a 72F day is going to be a nice one, and three lbs of potatoes is probably enough to make mashed potatoes for dinner for a family of four without really thinking about it. Someone who hasn’t lived in a country that uses metric doesn’t have that sense for our units.
I’ve had the experience of walking up to the meat counter in a foreign country and suddenly realizing that I don’t know what a kilo of pork loin actually is. Do I need one kilo? Two? 750 grams? Who can say? (The butcher, by the way, who will probably be helpful if you’re polite.)
And I was, like most Americans, taught the metric system in school, used it in Chemistry class, etc. It’s just not enough to intellectually know in order to make those measurements useful. You have to have used them intimately and for a prolonged time before they become second nature and you know that you need to order two kilos of pork loin for your dinner party if you expect six guests. Non-Americans aren’t taught our units at all, and will not develop a sense of them unless they come live here for an extended period (except in the weird smattering that the rest of the Anglo sphere still uses them).
Bonus opinions: even after living in metric countries and developing a sense, I still think Fahrenheit is a good system for telling ambient air temperature. I think metric system users are missing out by not having a “foot” type of measurement in their lengths measurements. They have decimeters in theory, but they’re not used in practice, and is still shorter than a foot by a lot. They’d need something like a 25cm measurement. A quadrimeter?
Other than that, metric is definitely a superior system and I wish we’d bite the bullet and make the switch.
IzzybearThebestdog@reddit
I’ll actually push back and say it had to some degree. That fact that people use miles, gallons, feet or pounds in any sense at all is because of the United States. Not that it’s common, but if the US was metric, those measurements would be nonexistent
WhatABeautifulMess@reddit
We're not typically trying to convert places the same way places seem eager to convert us for some reason. Why would we care?
xSparkShark@reddit
Getting a country to switch their units of measurement is a lot harder than getting them to watch your movies or listen to your music.
I would also cast doubt on the value of getting anyone else on board with Fahrenheit or miles. At this point I think the average citizen of a foreign nation wants to use measurements they know, regardless of their support or opposition to the US.
Practical-Ordinary-6@reddit
The US is literally laid out on that system. Just about every town west of the Appalachian Mountains is based on mile measurements. It's where the roads are it's how farms are measured it's built into the landscape. Changing the numbers isn't just changing the numbers and doing a conversion factor it's messing up the entire geography.
Where I used to live in Oklahoma and ride my bike I would get to a cross road literally every mile. I could ride 17 miles and cross 17 roads at exactly one mile intervals. If I do a 90 degree turn and go another mile there's another road and I can do that again and there's another road and I can do that again and there's another road. The area enclosed by those four roads is exactly one square mile. It's not set up for kilometers, it's set up for miles. You can't move those roads. Changing the system of measuring between them is just going to make them make a lot less sense.
Why_Teach@reddit
The metric system actually makes more sense.
Impossible_Memory_85@reddit
It’s not our problem if you don’t understand.
Ok-Energy-9785@reddit
How would we know?
Wisewordsforlater@reddit
I wouldn't say "American" culture is universal around the world. That's a lot to unpack. For 25 years (almost) running, the U.S. has squandered global goodwill in the aftermath of 9/11, endless wars, bizarre and illegal justifications for interventions, wars, occupations and extra-judicial killings. The metric system is better anyway on its own merits.
Practical-Ordinary-6@reddit
I don't know why people think we tried to push everything around. We don't. We just mind our business and do our thing, which includes those units. It would never occur to us to tell someone else how to measure whatever they want to measure.
Astute_Primate@reddit
Because of units correspond to nothing and don't make any sense. 12 inches in a foot? Three feet in a yard? 5,280 get in a mile? Wtf?? The metric system corresponds to the properties of matter and is easy. 10mm in a cm, 1000mm in a meter, 1000m in a km. In volume, 1000ml in a liter. No matter how severe your dyscalcula, if you understand decimals, you can do the metric system in your head. It's actually really annoying that we haven't gone to the metric system
308_shooter@reddit
This reminds me of Don Draper in Mad Men.
"What do you think about the rest of the world not adopting your systems of measurement?"
"I don't think about you at all."
ivylily03@reddit
Because metric is so much better
Sweaty-Move-5396@reddit
Because a) they are objectively worse, b) changing is overly difficult, and c) it's not that big a deal to convert as needed
user_number_666@reddit
Well, first of all hardly any of units of measure are actually American; we got most of them from the British.
So it's not like we have a national pride in using them, or have any reason to push them on others.
It's not that they are American so much as what we were using and still are using out of habit.
Sea_Analysis_8033@reddit
We don’t care what you do
JohnSnowsPump@reddit
What does the American military use in their foreign bases? I assume they are 100% metric.
Sorry, I don't know the conversion from the American 100% to whatever that is in metric.
ShipComprehensive543@reddit
Because we dont give a shit if anyone else uses it.
sep780@reddit
Others used to. They switched to metric because it’s easier overall. The US has refused to switch. That’s why we’re one of the few places left that use imperial units (feet, inches) over metric. Same with Fahrenheit vs celsius
PerfectAnonym@reddit
I don't think we're trying to. We actually have been trying to transition to SI since 1975, we've just REALLY been dragging our feet about it. I think we'll eventually end up a confusing mix of both systems being used depending on the specific application like what Canada has
rr90013@reddit
Becuase we know it’s inferior
afraidofthe-dark@reddit
Because the imperial system is British and was established in a lot of anglo nations. It makes sense that it would remain in British sourced countries, even after the widespread use of the metric system
JimDemintRecession@reddit
They're British creations we haven't fully shaken off yet. We're not looking to spread them.
ClerkLonely4061@reddit
It was invented and spread by the English. I guess other countries wanted to separate themselves from Being colonial.
Also the countries with mixed units are 100% worse.
Lakster37@reddit
In many ways, they are objectively worse than metric, which has already spread throughout the world. Why take a massive step backward?
cans-of-swine@reddit
Its ours and you cant have it.