[cmrdporcupine]

Observation as a Canadian: Until the US decides to finally convert (e.g. never), the rest of the anglo-sphere will be forever stuck in an awkward inbetween zone anyways. We supposedly converted to metric in the 70s but it's only ever been half-hearted, as many trades (especially construction) continue to work in imperial measurements, and most people work in an awkward combination of the two.

As Canadians we typically measure our height and weight in ft and lbs. But temperature in celsius and travel distances and speeds in kilometres and km/h. Except for cooking/recipes, where oven temperature is measured in fahrenheit and we have to deal with recipes with cups and ounces and so on. ... But recipes are also often in litres and grams. So...

And most people can think of thermostat or pool/lake water temperatures in fahrenheit as well as celsius.

We're supposed to be metric, but good luck finding a reasonable selection of metric screws/bolts/nuts at the hardware store. Online order.

Really this is all to do with deep integration with the US economy and its own bizarre mostly-imperial-but-metric-where-it's-important.

My poor father was a machinist, and originally was trained in metric Europe (Germany.) He found the whole situation extremely frustrating.

[Reason077]

> "As Canadians we typically measure our height and weight in ft and lbs. But temperature in celsius and travel distances and speeds in kilometres and km/h. Except for cooking/recipes, where oven temperature is measured in fahrenheit and we have to deal with recipes with cups and ounces and so on. ... But recipes are also often in litres and grams. So.."

As British we typically measure everything in metric, including oven temperatures and recipes. Except for road distances and speeds, which are miles and mph. Unless it's an e-bike which always seem to be km/h. And most modern cars do have dual units, showing km/h in case you drive over to Ireland or the continent.

Oh, and a few things like milk and beer are sold in pint-sized containers, but must clearly state 568 ml on the bottle.

[cmrdporcupine]

Yes I always find this funny. England is kind of totally opposite from Canada. Distances and speeds in miles, everything else metric.

Our speedometers can all switch, too these days. For travel into the US. Even Google maps will switch units right after you cross the border.

FWIW MPH has the advantage that it's easier to estimate travel times based on typical 60MPH hwy speed. A minute per mile more or less. 100KMH is more easily divisable etc. but doesn't map to time units as well. So in a way, I kind of enjoy driving in the US.

(In terms of localization stupidity, I find it obnoxious that Google's navigation can smoothly handle the transition into the United States, but cannot handle the mixed French/English nature of signage in Canada. I suppose I should have raised this as a bug when I worked there, but I find it awful that after over a decade of having text-to-speech facilities in both languages, Google can't handle bilingual countries and butchers mixed signs and gets completely fucked when driving into Quebec. Also Google photos thinks "thanksgiving" is end of November, despite me being in Canada.)

[hyperman1]

As an european: Our speed limit is generally 120 km/h and maps very well to time units. We wonder how you cope with your 74 mph

[cmrdporcupine]

In reality here in Ontario on the major highways the legal limit is 100km/h but actual practice is 120km/h. It's rare to go below that on the actual multilane 400-series highways, and rare you'd get ticketed for going that high.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

That feels wrong on so many levels...

[za3faran]

Are you referring to the fact that 120km/h means 2KM per minute?

[gpderetta]

And human weight in stones. Been living here for more than 10 years and still can't remember how much is a stone.

[soneil]

The nice trick with stones is that I don't care how much they are.

They're nice and vague enough that it's like .. if I go from 10 stone to 11 stone, I need to care. If I go from 10 to 10.1 I don't need to care. I don't convert them to pounds or kilos because I don't want to know the answer, it just adds anxiety that I don't need.

The funny thing is I'm otherwise metric-all-the-things. But for body weight, the lack of precision lets me focus on the trends instead of worrying about the details.

[cuttysnark]

1 stone = 14lbs. Learned this "whilst" (another chiefly British word) at study abroad in England. Ever after thought of the Bush album "Sixteen Stone" in a different light.

[gpderetta]

Of course I never remember that a how much a pound is.

From my d&d days (when we mix and matched Italian and English material) I remember that 2.5lbs is about 1kg, but that's a very rough approximation. Similarly I remember that 10ft is ~3m.

[klyrs]

A pound is 7000 grains, hope that helps

[EdwardDiego]

Ah, so just a touch under 292 pennyweights. That makes sense :D

[gpderetta]

For a few seconds i read 'grams' and I thought it was on the heavy side. Well played!

[cassianoleal]

And people's heights in feet and inches. Many times I had to convert because my British friends couldn't picture a height in metres and centimetres.

[codazoda]

I’m American and feel like I live in the “in-between” too. I measure people in ft and lbs. I measure wood in ft and inches. I design 3D objects in cm and mm unless I’m building in wood, in which case I’m back to feet and inches. I measure speed in miles per hour. I use tools mostly in metric but sometimes in SAE (depending on where it’s made and what it is).

[cmrdporcupine]

Yeah that's basically the situation here, too.

Basically it all comes back to the construction trades. If you own a home, and tools to work on it... you're stuck with imperial.

[spoiler]

> As Canadians we typically measure our height and weight in ft and lbs. But temperature in celsius and travel distances and speeds in kilometres and km/h. Except for cooking/recipes, where oven temperature is measured in fahrenheit and we have to deal with recipes with cups and ounces and so on. ... But recipes are also often in litres and grams. So...

These statements always amuse me, as someone who grew up in a purely metric culture. I always wondered: do you ever get confused when talking in so many similar but different units, or is it second nature?

[dcminter]

Brit here. Second nature. It's either clear from context ("doing 70 in a 40" -> mph) or you instinctively make the units explicit. Metric is better though ;)

[cmrdporcupine]

Confused, yes.

Especially since we are taught metric exclusively in school. But then get into the real world or deal with "adults" and find so many things in imperial.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

As an immigrant to canada, doing the conversion in mind is PITA (I used metric system my whole life)

The most annoying thing inside homes is that everything is tuned for metric system. So you end up with things like xxx37cm, so annoying to line up.

[willsmith72]

Just to put another datapoint out there from the "anglo-sphere", Australia and New Zealand are completely metric.

The one exception you could say is height, where in casual speech people sometimes say "6 foot", but if it were a medical situation it would again always be in cm.

[cmrdporcupine]

Sounds like distance from the US has made you saner.

In terms of other English-speaking commonwealth countries, it seem South Africa is similar; heights etc. in imperial, everything else metric.

That mostly describes the situation in Canada, but as I said construction trades and recipes really push people to have to have a feel for both systems.

[Sytten]

Also grocery stores sometimes sell fruits, vegetables, etc in lbs, sometimes in kg so it's much harder to compare prices between the different chains. I wish it was mandated to use the metric price first and (optionally) put the imperial price in small print.

[Inhibit]

Oddly enough all the automotive fasteners and bolts switched to metric some time ago here in the USA. Which makes the (relative) lack of available metric bolts/screws doubly frustrating.

[cmrdporcupine]

Yep, it's ridiculous. Mounting ski bindings myself -- it's all metric. Go to get fasteners... no luck. Have to order. But good luck buying them at a reasonable price online in consumer quantities. In "metric" Canada.

[beej71]

As Americans attempting to be more globally-oriented in these things, we set our thermometers to Celsius and all our GPS maps to kilometers.

It was interesting to watch ourselves slowly become "bilingual" over several months as we got used to what we needed to wear when it was 30° (F or C) outside.

I do wish countries (especially ours) would go all in.

Except for the pint. I always thought that was a good, allowable exception. :)

[iroddis]

This phenomenon is neatly captured in the locker-room wisdom for the recommended amount of protein intake for athletes here: 1 gram per pound of body weight.

[klyrs]

Moving to Canada from the US was a weird experience. They sell butter in 454g bricks. That's a pound, but it's sold in grams. The wrapper is marked with graduations of whole, half and quarter cups. They sell meat and cheese by the kilogram, 100gram, pound, or ounce, with different brands using different units -- making price comparison between similar products a bit of a chore.

[goalieca]

As a lifelong Canadian, i still haven’t figured out when baking measurements are metric or imperial. Is a cup 8 ounces or 250ml? It depends on the recipe! Close enough I guess for some if ratios are maintained

Edit: liquid medicine are sometimes given in metric teaspoons/tablespoons but always always have the metric measurement beside. So that’s clear at least.

[edanm]

I'm guessing this is less to do with the anglo-sphere and more to do with the amount of trade done with the US.

[joeman1000]

Australian Civil eng. here. We’re fully metric.