[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.