Metric vs imperial measurers

mzweili

Guru
It seems strange that all of the major Commonwealth counties (Australia (1971), New Zealand, India, and Canada) have all metricated
correction: here in Quebec (Canada) body mass is still expressed in pounds, body height in foot and inches and the weird unit of temperature, Fahrenheit created by a German (Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit in 1724) still applies to recipes and pool water temperatures.
And ''standard'' bolts have imperial thread.
Many people call a liter a pint, and all beverages are in onces.
When someone asks you what mileage has the car he certainly means Km
As European it took me a while to get familiar with that mix
 

ratz

Wielder of the Rubber Mallet
correction: here in Quebec (Canada) body mass is still expressed in pounds, body height in foot and inches and the weird unit of temperature, Fahrenheit created by a German (Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit in 1724) still applies to recipes and pool water temperatures.
And ''standard'' bolts have imperial thread.
Many people call a liter a pint, and all beverages are in onces.
When someone asks you what mileage has the car he certainly means Km
As European it took me a while to get familiar with that mix

Living near the US/Canada border most of my life; that is completely in line with my expectations. :confused:
 

super slim

Zen MBB Master
correction: here in Quebec (Canada) body mass is still expressed in pounds, body height in foot and inches and the weird unit of temperature, Fahrenheit created by a German (Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit in 1724) still applies to recipes and pool water temperatures.
And ''standard'' bolts have imperial thread.
Many people call a liter a pint, and all beverages are in onces.
When someone asks you what mileage has the car he certainly means Km
As European it took me a while to get familiar with that mix
It looks like USA has been a BAD influence on Canada!!!
 

quickbeam

Well-Known Member
My Dad was a minister and back in the 80's I was lamenting how we were giving up on the metric conversion. He was happy enough with our traditional system, so I told him, if God wanted us to use the metric system, He would have given us 10 fingers and 10 toes. Dad didn't think that was so funny :-/

As a computer guy, I could go with the hexadecimal system. I have a binary clock at work, it would make a lot more sense if we had 64 minutes in an hour. Then seeing the 1/2 hour, 1/4 hours, etc. would be a snap.

I've also seen people promoting the "dozenal" system - base 12. You think how often we use it already - dozen donuts, dozen cans in a case, dozen hours in 1/2 a day, dozen finger joints on each hand, etc. Divisible by 2,3,4 and 6. Many European languages have unique names for the first dozen numbers, and then get into the -teen thing after that. We even have a word, "gross" for a dozen squared.
 
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quickbeam

Well-Known Member
However, in the South...you can be your own grandpa. :confused:
The Doctor from Dr. Who, David Tennant, married the woman who played his daughter on one of the shows. She actually is the real-life daughter of a previous Doctor from the first run of the series. (This makes sense if you've followed the series). Then they had a daughter. Dr. Who fans have come up with some interesting family trees from that - the doctor's daughter is also the doctor's grandaughter for instance.

https://mydoctorwhoblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/the-georgia-moffat-paradox.jpg
 
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super slim

Zen MBB Master
I worked on railroads for a bit, I was surprised to learn that Canada RR system uses the miles entirely.
Another Industry INFECTED by USA "Imperial" measurements, due to interaction of USA and Canadian rail systems, to get product to/from the West Coast.
 

quickbeam

Well-Known Member
CN (Canadian National) has nearly as many miles in the U.S. as in Canada - they go thru Chicago all the way down to New Orleans. (Their Chicago bypass goes about 1.5 miles, er 2.5 km, from my house). Pretty sure they used miles from the get-go, and Canada just exempted the railroads in 1970 when they moved to the metric system.

Yesterday I went to the LBS to get a couple tubes - had to ask for a 700x35 and a 26"x1.5". We're more ambidextrous (so to speak) than we often realize.
 
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