• too_high_for_this@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    It’s funny that Europeans complain about Americans being dumb but also can’t comprehend converting units of measurement.

    • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Europeans

      This is the the real way I know you’re American lol.

      It’s the WHOLE WORLD other than you (and perhaps special mention to the UK and Canada being weirdos using multiple systems)

      • too_high_for_this@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Weird how colonialism affects things, right? Our industrial revolution happened while we still used British units, so I suppose you can thank them.

        The metric system reached us too late. Nobody wants to spend the money to convert entire industries. It’s easier and cheaper to just do the conversion.

        • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Nobody wants to spend the money to convert entire industries

          There are multiple industries who prove this isn’t a blanket rule.

          There’s a reason you buy soft drinks in 2 L bottles and not by quarts or whatever unit you use for that kind of size. Because of alcohol sizes, people also intuitively know 500 mL (which I believe has pretty much replaced 16 flozus bottles) as well as 700 mL bottles for wine, etc.

          There are a bunch of other examples where metric is seeping in.

          I feel very sorry for US based engineers though, since many industries don’t really have the same push to convert, RIP.

          I also LOVE seeing that many American social media creators have started using “grams of protein” (they still say per “serve”, instead of per 100g, which is silly, but in time they might notice that grams per 100g is a percentage and see how much more useful that is for comparison purposes).

          There’s even this guy who weighs food to see which is more “justified” for the price. Eventually his viewers will know how much things weigh.

          We’ll get ya, in time. In time you will be assimilated, resistance is futile ;)

    • EuroNutellaMan@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      We can comprehend it. We just don’t see why we should be the ones doing it instead of the few idiots who still measure things with their feet like a bunch of fetishist cavemen

    • Johanno@feddit.org
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      5 days ago

      We could, but why should we? I can easily switch between grams, kilograms and tonnes. Hell I can tell you that 1 litre of water weighs 1 kilogram. I am not going to deal with gallons per square inch of pounds

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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            5 days ago

            Well you know, the full saying is “a pint’s a pound the world around, except the UK where it’s several quid, and really mostly in the US, Liberia, and Myanmar”

        • BNE@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          4 days ago

          Depends on the flesh you’re rending - the original conversion was from whales but the popularised version is with bacon rended over camp fires; it’s been this way since 2006AD so it’s a pretty well established system. Semper fi, Imperialism.

          • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            the original conversion was from whales but the popularised version is with bacon rended

            Reply to wrong post? Pint is 1/8th of gallon and gallon came from old Norman French with latin roots.