Miles per litre would be fine, even km per litre, but the metric way of measuring flips it over so bigger is worse rather than better, so it doesn’t catch on
The numbers don’t work out too, “litres per 100km”. Why not millilitres per km (or litres per gigametre)
I drive X miles (or X km), I then fill up with Y litres (or Y gallons)
If I put 40 litres in my car and do 16 km per litre that’s 640km of range, simple calculation of 40x16
If I need to travel 260km at 20km/litre I need to but 260/20 litres or about 13 litres.
If I put 40 litres in my 3.6 litre per 100 km my range is 40/3.6 = 11 x 100 = 1100km.
If I need to do 260km at 3.6l/100km I need to do 260/100 = 2.6, times 3.6 = 9 litres.
With the “metric” way you need to do two calculations.
if you insist on using volume per length, I’d personally prefer 36ml/km, then I know I need 36x260 ml of fuel to go 260km, or my 40,000ml tank will take me 40000/36 = 1100km.
> The numbers don’t work out too, “litres per 100km”. Why not millilitres per km (or litres per gigametre)
> I drive X miles (or X km), I then fill up with Y litres (or Y gallons)
This isn't what most use the liters per 100km for though. People just fill up whenever the light on the car tells them to. Mainly the number is used to compare cars when buying a new one. Some keep track of the actual consumption to notice if something is wrong with their car (just write down the current number on the odometer and how many liters you put in on some paper/app/whatever. you can do the actual calculations later)
At least this has been my experience here in Finland.
> If I need to travel 260km at 20km/litre I need to but 260/20 litres or about 13 litres.
> With the “metric” way you need to do two calculations.
That's really an absurd way of looking at it, because one of those calculations is a division or multiplication by 100, and 100km happens to be a typical distance someone might be interested into finding fuel efficiency.
So the answer to me is an immediate mental computation, 2.6 x 5l = 13, you never ever need to compute consumption per km, express things in ml etc.
Your own "easy" examples look to me very intuitive and convoluted, so I guess the systems are 100% comparable, the only difference is the power of habit.
Indeed. I suspect the driving and oil lobbies are keen to keep it that way, to help obscure the cost per unit distance and thus keep us all driving as far and burning as much gas/petrol/diesel as possible.
Rare to see square foot only, but 108 square foot sounds bigger than 10 square meters, 2.7 acres sounds bigger than 1.1 hectares, so obviously salesmen are going to include those numbers.
Maybe officially but I don't know many people born in the UK who would give (when asked) their height in centimetres. Weight is a little more even split - using kilos is becoming more common but most conversations I have with people still use stone. The NHS's BMI calculator defaults to feet/inches and stones/pounds although you can switch to CM/KG.
I dont think that's true. I see imperial much more than metric.
Measures are much more common in inches, foot and miles than metric.
Volumes are much more common in cups, gallons, pints than metric.
Weights are more common in pounds and ounces than metric.
That's in almost all domains, not just "a few high-profile holdouts" (even cooking, where it kills me that quantities of solids are in "cups" rather than grams...)
> Measures are much more common in inches, foot and miles than metric.
I think this is partially true, particularly with the older generation. People often talk about their height in feet and inches, and their weight in stone and pounds.
> Volumes are much more common in cups, gallons, pints than metric. Weights are more common in pounds and ounces than metric.
Your experience seems to be very different to mine. To be honest I have no idea what a gallon even is, and no intuitive concept of an ounce. The only place I have ever seen measurements in "cups" is one chicken biryani recipe I found on an American website. (I agree it's bizarre: half a cup of mint leaves - wtf?!). Any recipe published in the UK in the last couple of decades tends to be in grams and millilitres. Example picked at random:
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/chocolate-courgette-cake
Seems like this must vary a lot as my experience is very different.
I rarely see/hear/use imperial outside pints and road signs, or for “sizes” like screen or clothing waist sizes, unless I’m talking to people a generation older than me (I’m 40).
Every recipe site I use either has both or is entirely metric, and I only ever use metric. I’d probably look elsewhere if a search turned up a recipe in imperial only.
Even distances are in KM outside of driving (because of the road signs).
Pretty much everyone I know talks about their weight in KG. Heights do seem pretty split between cm and ft/inches but everyone understands both.
Most liquids except beer and cider (including other alcohol like wine and spirits) are in litres and ml.
It’s very obvious to me how metric-first life is for me because visiting America involves constant conversion and thinking whereas everything in other European countries (which are generally entirely metric) comes easily.
Because they are a weird middle ground. UK uses metric paper, metric weights and measures for _most_ things, metric temperature. Where Imperial starts to slip in is distance when driving (but not when running...), volumes of Beer and Milk (mainly cause we want more beer than 500ml) and body weight (where we use Stones, which is weird). There are probably some other things as well, but metric is the dominant system (for people under 60) for sure.
But so is the United States. In all industries where it matters (science, technology, military, medicine) metric is virtually the only measurement system that's used, not to mention that a lot of products are sold in round metric quantities, not imperial.
Ask an average American to give you the length of their car, size of their kitchen or weight of a brick in metric and they'll have no clue. The average British person can do this, because education has been metric for 50+ years and the least-technical industry (e.g. construction, DIY) is metric.
(See e.g. https://www.diy.com/, the largest consumer-facing DIY shop in Britain. It's 20kg of 10mm gravel, doors in millimetres, paint in litres. I can't even see a button offering an imperial conversion.)
Or you plan to buy the "metric" one that is 1250mm × 2500mm, but your contractor messes up and buys the "American" size after the studs have been built 625mm apart.
/u/sgjohnson said metric is used in "in all industries where it matters". Have you maybe considered that "the length of their car, size of their kitchen or weight of a brick" are all examples of where it _doesn't_ matter?
I’m not really sure what your point is. If we take as a starting point that the US used the metric system where it matters, then why is it an issue that it isn’t used ubiquitously? I’m not saying you need to agree with the claim “the US used the metric where it matters”, but if we just take that on face value, then why isn’t that enough? Why do you care if Americans talking amongst themselves speak in their own vernacular and system of measurements? What exactly is the problem?
The comment I first replied to said the US was in the same middle-ground as the UK.
That is not true -- it's in a different middle ground, much further from a fully-metric country. That's all my point was.
> Why do you care if Americans talking amongst themselves speak in their own vernacular and system of measurements?
It's fine if they keep it to themselves. I'm never bothered by traditional Japanese floor area measurements, for example. But Americans attempt to use their own, private system when communicating to the rest of the world, in commerce, software and media. (Search "Weather Taipei" on Google while in Taiwan, with a browser set to not-US-English, and you end up with Fahrenheit etc. Set Windows to "English Ireland" and random bits of stuff will still be in miles/°F.)
This even leaks to non-Americans (or maybe English translators). It's annoying to go to a museum in, say, Brazil and see the Portuguese text uses metric, but this has been translated to pounds and feet in the English text. Most of the tourists reading the English aren't even American!
> But Americans attempt to use their own, private system when communicating to the rest of the world, in commerce, software and media.
What’s the difference between that and when the rest of the world tries to communicate with Americans using metric? In my experience foreigners in the US complain significantly more about the US not using metric while in the US than Americans do while in countries using metric.
> Search "Weather Taipei" on Google while in Taiwan, with a browser set to not-US-English, and you end up with Fahrenheit etc.
Can you not set your choice of units as a preference? Or are you annoyed that Google chose a default that is different than the one you wish to see? Given there is no universal choice that pleases everyone, wouldn’t their choice annoy some people no matter what? In any case, this is a complain to direct to Google and not Americans in general. Besides you’re free to use another weather app that matches your defaults.
> It's annoying to go to a museum in, say, Brazil and see the Portuguese text uses metric, but this has been translated to pounds and feet in the English text. Most of the tourists reading the English aren't even American!
This is a complaint that should be directed at a certain Brazilian museum.
That's absurd to say. Of course people care about the sizes of their cars and kitchens. And they need to know the weight of bricks when thinking about weight tolerances in construction.
It is your post that is absurd. And you seem quite confused. I never said people don’t care about the sizes of their cars and the weights of their bricks. I said that maybe the use of the metric system doesn’t matter for those things. You are aware that it is possible to speak of the sizes and weight of things in systems other than metric right?
Any American can visualize the size of a two‐liter bottle, thanks to our addiction to soda. Three‐liter is also a commonly available size. I’ve never in my life seen anything sold in quantity of one liter here, though.
The difference is that in the UK nearly everything you interact with in your daily life is in metric. You won't find anything in a UK household in imperial measurements other than the bottle of milk in the fridge.
For supermarket milk at least, I can only remember seeing both units for quite a while. I had a glance at the one in our fridge, and it says "2.272L 4 pints" on the label.
Except engineering/architecture. Making design software for architects and civil engineers in Europe then (trying to) introduce it to the US market is a b**h!
All kids in the UK learn metric, and possibly some imperial (but only as a side thing). There are still things colloquially said in imperial, such as weight and height, but if you go to a doctor it will be in cm and kg.
We're still a bit of a mishmash, but it's not as bad as it might seem from outside.
>In Canada, Australia, India and some other former Commonwealth countries vital statistics, living and commercial spaces, oven temperatures and recipe measurements might still be imperial.
