Why the heck does America still use outdated measurement and date units?

[DaveFromCampbelltown]

I am given to understand that one of the reasons the Death Star was incomplete was that one set of contractors was using Hexadecimal units and another was using Pentatonic. If everyone had been using Cubits, all would have been fine...

 

[jagolden]

I think it’s just to irk all those other countries that still drive on the wrong sid of the road.

 

[mtbdudex]

Yep, 98% of USA home stuff is in inches & feet, not mm.
Oh well

 

[Algr]

If I go to the hardware store, all the plywood panels are 4 foot by 8 foot. What do they call a 2x4 in Europe? And how big is it?

 

[timber]

If I go to the hardware store, all the plywood panels are 4 foot by 8 foot. What do they call a 2x4 in Europe? And how big is it?

What do you use those panels for? Walls?
In my country walls are mostly made with bricks.
Those panels are more common in some ceilings.
Leroy Merlin (a common DIY store) lists 1,2 meters by 2 or 2,5 or 3 meters panels.
The 1,2 by 2,5 comes quite close to a 2x4 in feet.
PS: sorry, was checking drywall. Plywood measurements are still similar but they seem to offer both metric and imperial sizes (in metric). I suppose they have suppliers who do business in several markets as I really don't know what to do with large wood panels outside of furniture. There are 1,2m by 2,5m and 122 cm by 244 cm among other options (3 meters for example) and combinations (several thickness options which are of course in millimeters).
From my extensive experience watching US home improvement shows ( 😎 ) I would say that both these itens are much more common in America than around here. I'm somewhat surprised they were so easy to find in DIY stores.

 

[iLondoner]

Imagine what it was like before UK went to decimal currency. There were 12 pence (d) in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound. So if you added £1 9s and 8d to £3 14s and 5d, the answer would be £5 4s and 1d. Pre 1971 computer systems held all currency amounts in pennies (240d in £1) and only converted to £sd when printing.

£sd stood for the latin currency denominations of librae, solidi and denari, so ultimately we should have blamed the Romans. America wisely abandoned £sd in 1792.

As for measurement, the UK switched from gallons to litres for liquids in 1995 but our cars still measure fuel consumption in miles per gallon. Continental Europe measures in litres per 100km which is difficult to get one's head round, so I use km per litre instead.

Despite a 1955 referendum in which Swedes votes 83% to keep driving on the left, the country switched to driving on the right in September 1967. All traffic stopped at 04:50, crossed to the other side of the road, stopped again until 05:00, then restarted.

 

[Micky Do]

Yep, 98% of USA home stuff is in inches & feet, not mm.
Oh well

100% of US Customary units are defined using the metric system.

 

[eyoungren]

Yep…so now working on the golf yardage book for a course in New Zealand. I last worked on it four years ago. Apparently they have changed all the holes (as golf courses are wont to do).

All my work will be double, because there are two books, one in yards and the other one in meters.

 

[DaveFromCampbelltown]

Imagine what it was like before UK went to decimal currency. There were 12 pence (d) in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound. So if you added £1 9s and 8d to £3 14s and 5d, the answer would be £5 4s and 1d. Pre 1971 computer systems held all currency amounts in pennies (240d in £1) and only converted to £sd when printing.

...

Ah, but you missed the joy of learning to do long division into £sd.

In grade 3 (or maybe 4) we were taught how to divide £5 4s 1d by 13.
It was a three stage process. Divide into the pounds in Base 10, get the remainder and multiply by 20 convert to shillings.
Add that to the shillings and divide into the shillings in Base 20, get the remainder and multiply by 12 to get pennies.
Add that to the pennies and divide into the pennies in Base 12. (I think that's right. It's over 6 decades since I did it.)

Thank heavens we had dropped ha'pennies, farthings and guineas by that stage.
Imagine working out the change to a Guinea (£1 1s) when you have just sold a baker's dozen loaves of bread at
6 pence ha'penny each. No calculators, no working out on paper, you have to do it in your head because the customer is standing in front of you.

 

[mtbdudex]

Despite a 1955 referendum in which Swedes votes 83% to keep driving on the left, the country switched to driving on the right in September 1967. All traffic stopped at 04:50, crossed to the other side of the road, stopped again until 05:00, then restarted.

Wow, that’s a neat tidbit.
Musta been weird having used cars with steering wheel & pedals on both sides…

 

[timber]

Wow, that’s a neat tidbit.
Musta been weird having used cars with steering wheel & pedals on both sides…

I don't now how it happened but they probably drove what they had until those cars were replaced and then bought something for the new rules.
We have lots of British visitors, they drive around OK, they only have to change the headlights settings or use stickers on them (to block light) and (I suppose) be extra careful when overtaking.
A lot of time ago driving lesson cars used to have 2 sets of controls, I remember going to my mother lessons (Peugeot 404) and it had 2 of everything. That was in the mid 80s.
When it was my time it probably had got too complicated and expensive to do that and they only installed one extra set of pedals (3) for the driving instructor.
Nowadays I don't know if they still do that. Probably not as everything is electronic.

 

[compwiz1202]

Ah, but you missed the joy of learning to do long division into £sd.

In grade 3 (or maybe 4) we were taught how to divide £5 4s 1d by 13.
It was a three stage process. Divide into the pounds in Base 10, get the remainder and multiply by 20 convert to shillings.
Add that to the shillings and divide into the shillings in Base 20, get the remainder and multiply by 12 to get pennies.
Add that to the pennies and divide into the pennies in Base 12. (I think that's right. It's over 6 decades since I did it.)

Thank heavens we had dropped ha'pennies, farthings and guineas by that stage.
Imagine working out the change to a Guinea (£1 1s) when you have just sold a baker's dozen loaves of bread at
6 pence ha'penny each. No calculators, no working out on paper, you have to do it in your head because the customer is standing in front of you.

Yea long division is fun, but square roots on paper are next level

 

[mtbdudex]

Lunchtime here, I’m at Panera bread.
Bag of chips, the main weight is listed dual units.
The nutrition label to my memory has only been listed in grams, yea.

My guess is the 3rd party lab’s who do the testing only feedback in metric .. and somehow us dumb Americans can grasp it still.

 

[eyoungren]

My guess is the 3rd party lab’s who do the testing only feedback in metric .. and somehow us dumb Americans can grasp it still.

That is probably because we all have at some point long learned to grasp metric when it relates to medicine. Any OTC or Rx meds we buy comes in Mg or Ml.

This is the same thing.

 

[Algr]

I wonder if the best way to convert to metric would be one unit at a time. As in one day we would outlaw the quart and just have liters instead. And then a year later we would switch just the gas pumps to liters. And a year after that, something else.

 

[timber]

I went to google what the quart was and found it surprising it is almost one liter.

 

[Mousse]

I went to google what the quart was and found it surprising it is almost one liter.

A quart is 32 Florida ounces.

 

[Ericplan]

That is probably because we all have at some point long learned to grasp metric when it relates to medicine. Any OTC or Rx meds we buy comes in Mg or Ml.

This is the same thing.

Grasp the difference. A capital M stands for mega, lower case m stands for milli. So 1 mg = 0,001g.

 

[timber]

A quart is 32 Florida ounces.

I wonder why US measurements are quite similar but not the same as the British equivalents.

Grasp the difference. A capital M stands for mega, lower case m stands for milli. So 1 mg = 0,001g.

We tend to call the Mg the ton 😎

 

[Ericplan]

I wonder why US measurements are quite similar but not the same as the British equivalents.

We tend to call the Mg the ton 😎

And the difference between milli and Mega is Giga 🙂🙂

 

[Algr]

How come no one complains when sailors and airlines measure speeds in "knots"? Why not make them change?

 

[Apple fanboy]

Lunchtime here, I’m at Panera bread.
Bag of chips, the main weight is listed dual units.
The nutrition label to my memory has only been listed in grams, yea.

My guess is the 3rd party lab’s who do the testing only feedback in metric .. and somehow us dumb Americans can grasp it still.

But you don’t need to understand those numbers. It’s basically
Chips = bad.
Salad = good.

Unless you’re talking taste!

 

[cyb3rdud3]

How come no one complains when sailors and airlines measure speeds in "knots"? Why not make them change?

Because they align with degrees of latitude. One nautical mile equals one minute of latitude.

 

[timber]

How come no one complains when sailors and airlines measure speeds in "knots"? Why not make them change?

In European flights they talk the gibberish then say the speed in km/h and the altitude in meters so everybody understands.
But knots is something I kind of understand due to my extensive profissional experience on serious applications like flight sims video games.

 

[mtbdudex]

Ha, well this bottle “size” is what?
Make some plastic molded bottle fit some logistics container first , then see it’s capacity ??
Like x amount of bottles can fit in a pallet, we can then stack y pallets in a truck.
18.5 oz (1.15 Pint) = 547 ml
Yea, this one makes no sense