To Canadians, British, Irish, Australians, New Zealanders, Jamaicans, anyone else from an english-speaking country with ties to the crown: What units do you THINK in, imperial or metric? What about older people that you know? Even if you have an intuitive sense for both units, you must be more comfortable with one or the other.
I was under the impression that none of these groups used imperial at all anymore (except colloquially/informally), but my brother (we're US native) recently visited a far-off relation in rural England and told me he was surprised to see some road signs in miles. Our relative told us that many people still consider imperial units to be their first nature, although young people in urban areas don't. I'm wondering what others think. Is it similar in commonwealth/other english speaking nations?
Ian Hall
canadian here
>imperal, fahrenheit human height, human weight, cooking
>metric, celsius everything else
Mason Hughes
Canadian here Pounds, Litres, Kilometers, Feet+Inches
Jace White
Canadian here. I think in imperial because that's just what everyone around me used. That's what they used when I did carpentry.
Michael Foster
Britbong here Transport system in the UK still uses miles cause its old as shit and nobody wants to redo everything even though 99.9% of all other distance measurements are in metric. Like all the speed limits, road signs, the lot would have to be replaced, thats a huge cost.
But to answer your question:
Imperial: Human weight, just because everyone else uses it and i want to communicate effectively Human Height, just because everyone else uses it and i want to communicate effectively
Metric The rest
Juan Jones
uk here; metric for volume, cooking depends on the instruction (can vary), distance is preferably imperial, height & weight is both depending on context. (but when asked its typically imperial though strangely people where im from are really bad at using both lbs kg and mainly use stone). generally prefer cm over inches but feet and metres it really does vary. i think in public settings, feet might be preferred (e.g a swimming pool, car park)
celsius is an always; fuck farhenheight.
Jayden Scott
Thanks for some responses. From my own perspective the only thing making any headway in the US is Celcius. In weather reports etc they often list both although Farenheit is given priority. I don't even see token use of kg, meter, liter etc except in scientific uses.
Landon Rogers
Rural England here, for anything scientific metric all the way
We generally use miles for long distance and defo MPH for speed. Height in feet and inches unless tailor measuring Weight I use kg as do most of my friends but I know quite a few who think in stone and lbs, again tailor measuring kg Small distances inches are a nice size,but millimetres work well for the very small, I often find metres to be bigger than I expect so feet still make an appearance We buy beer in pints and desu its pretty rare to colloquially use volume apart from that so I don't really feel natural in either of them, car engine in litres however
You might not know that literally everyone uses the imperial barleycorn for foot size measurement in the UK
Older generations use imperial, also many things have traditional sizes that will be imperial, like acres of land and a cricket pitch is a chain in length (22 yards)
Ryder Clark
Oh and as a physics undergrad I have no qualms with using MPH since going between MPH and m/s is an easy conversion of 2.2 so if I get in answer in m/s I can quickly convert to MPH and think if that's reasonable or not
Dominic Morris
>thinking in non elementary\natural units
Carson Thomas
New zealand here. Machinist, CNC programer. Metric 100% even if specs call for inches (which they sometimes do) the inches get decimalised. Occasionally have to think fractions when using spanners bit I still associate them to a size in mm.
Evan Lopez
It varies.
Kg for weight, or Stones if it's my own weight. Pints for lower liquid volume. Litres for anything above 100 pints. Miles if I'm driving, Km if thinking about lightspeed. Cm always (unless I'm measuring my dick, which is 7 inches btw).
Bentley Butler
this
Brandon Ortiz
.... britbong btw
Colton Jackson
Australian here, I know some imperial units are in strong use in Britain. I think it's rarely anything more than feet, yards and miles though.
I use full metric and think in metric (or rather, SI).
John Ward
new zealand here, metric+celcius. the only thing i measure in imperial is height and dick length
Alexander Davis
Most New Zealanders use: Imperial for cooking, building and height Metric for school, weight and road speeds Celsius for temperature
William Smith
I'm Australian. I still think of human height in feet/inches. Everything else is in metric, though. Every time I read an imperial measurement in a book I have to pause to do a quick mental calculation if I want to get an intuitive sense of what they're talking about. "50 feet" for instance means nothing to me intuitively.
Elijah Long
Actually, slight correction. Beer often comes in pints. Though I usually think of that as shorthand for "a bit more than half a litre".
Benjamin Jackson
Australian and the same as you. I think it must be pretty typical for Australians.
Kevin Anderson
Canadafag here. This.
Connor Perez
Canada switched only within the past half-century so plenty of old-timers still think in miles.
Everyone still uses imperial for height and weight. People will look at you weird if you give either of them in metres or kilograms, but we use litres for volume and metres for distance without a second thought.
Henry Jackson
Same for Kiwis.
Christopher Jackson
As much as people (justifiably) mock Americans for being so behind on adopting the metric system, I've never heard people use stone here.
Brandon Edwards
That's one of the key disadvantages of the imperial measurement system: its meanings vary slightly the world over. Whenever an Aussie uses the imperial system to communicate measures to an American, confusion is bound to happen at some point.
Elijah Peterson
ausfag. metric for everything but height and penis size
Jack Cooper
>What units do you THINK in? Human height and weight I measure in imperial. Everything else is Metric/Celsius. > What about older people that you know? The same.
t. Canada
Asher Watson
Wrong Building and cooking is imperial here in NZ
Thomas Morales
Meter, I can understand. It completely acknowledges its arbitrariness, but forms a more math-friendly system of scale compared to the various ugly, historic "12 of this, 5280 of that" that stitched various old standards together. But for everything else, what's so great about water? It isn't even self-reliant; most of the measurements change in different gravities and/or pressures.
Lucas Cruz
I am plenty comfortable with both, but if I have to pick:
>weight pounds
>volume Depends on the liquid; milk, gasoline, my aquarium or swimming pool: gallons everything else pretty much: liters
>distance When driving: Miles Around the house: yards or meters, they're only ~3 inches off anyways Small stuff: inches
Nathan Garcia
>road signs, the lot would have to be replaced, thats a huge cost.
I never understood this. Signs don't last forever, a few decades at most.
1) old one has miles --> replace it with a miles/km sign 2) old one has miles/km --> replace it with a km sign
each step takes 10-15 years, so plenty of time to adapt, and for no extra cost
Josiah Edwards
Aussie here,
Metric everything except for dick size for some reason.