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OT English System vs Imperial System of Measure
Nad R wrote:
echinosum wrote: Nad R;927420 Wrote: I have traveled to Canada on occasion. Canada uses the Imperial Gallon as 4.5 liters. Where the US Gallon is 3.7 liters for gasoline containers. So can I assume we both learned something here? You now know what the English System is now? And that we both need to be conscious of the English vs Imperial differences? In the US every day life people use the English System. In the Science Arena is the only area in the US that uses the Metric System in which I am also familure with. But as you stated you seem to use a mixed system, Celsius for temperature and inches for measurement. Is this common to mix it up in your part of the world? Here in the US the two systems are separate, no mix. It is one or the other. I was in Guatemala once. Small size drink bottles were 12 oz, larger ones were 1 litre. Mixes of measures are not uncommon. Here in Britain: Petrol is sold in litres but roads are measured in miles. Unfortunately fuel consumption is only available in mpg or litres/100km, when it would make much more sense if it was reported as miles/litre or litres/100 miles. Some oldies have to convert litres to gallons in their head, to understand what they are buying, but I haven't discussed gallons with anyone for many years, except hidden in mpg fuel consumption measures. The weather forecast is given in celcius as the prime measure, (with Frankenstein in parenthesis on occasion). Although a few over 50s still think in Frankenstein, celcius (often given its old name centigrade) is what is in common use. Beer and milk are sold in pints, but all other liquids are sold in litres. So there is still an understanding of pints for consumable liquids. Recipe books and scales still use pounds/oz with metric alternative. So although food is sold in kg in shops, pounds/oz remain deeply engrained. Personally I mainly use metric, though certain recipes I've been using for decades I still think in oz. US recipes in cups confuse us terribly. I have stuck a label on my scales 1 cup = 225g, for translation from US recipe books. Even though in theory metric, a lot of packaged things are sold in amounts of "about a pound", sometimes precisely 454g, but often 400g, 450g, 500g. Although certain things have legally prescribed package sizes: wine can be sold as 375ml, 500ml, 750ml, 1000ml, and no other sizes in this range. So the old practice of selling you 720ml, 700ml, even 690ml I saw once, is outlawed. Everything in DIY shops is metric. Working off plans, builders use mm. But people know their height in feet and inches and it is a rare person who readily knows it in mm, although that is how the doctor will record it on your medical records. People still give approximations in inches, even young people, though they never do any sums at school in such amounts. So, apart from miles for roads (in fact it is illegal to measure roads in km, a council who put up some metric signs had to take them down) and pints for beer and milk, just about everything else is legally required to be metric in Britain. After 30-40 years, we are are increasingly getting used to them. But inches/feet and pounds/oz remain engrained in the culture, even for young people, even though they learn nothing about them at school. So I see said the blind man. Here in the US I have noticed most modern books on baking no longer measure dry goods by volume. Many of the newer books on baking measure dry goods by weight because items like flour can very from different sources. When they go by weight the baked goods tend to more consistent. But remember the first line. A gallon is not same as a gallon in Canada. A pint in the US is sixteen ounces, some countries a pint is twenty ounces ( I think ). It's worse than the difference in ounces per pint (or gallon). The US fluid ounce is not the same as the Imperial fluid ounce either. The interesting thing is you can agree over what is in a bottle of scotch. A US fifth (one fifth of a US gal) is the same as one sixth of an Imperial gallon which was the traditional size for wine and spirit bottles. So all those bottles of Laphroaig were despatched for US consumption only needed new labels. With metric conversion those scotch bottles were rounded to 750ml and now somehow to 700ml. The universe is clearly shrinking. David |
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