This question is for you Canadians or Australians who can remember the change over to metric. Canada and Australia seem to have fully embraced the change as far as roads more than the UK. When i was in early elementary school I remember learning the metric measurements and begin told we would be changing over by 1980... here we are 31 years later. The biggest use of metric in the US are liquor bottles and 2L soda. Science as well I have a bachelors degree in Biology and i think of freezing/boiling as 0/100. But 30 does not sound hot to me. Australian TV shows and documentaries or House Hunters International every one is comfortable using meters.
How long did it take to "think" in metric? I can calculate km pretty easily. Someone says 500km i think 250 miles. 1km is more of less 1/2mile and from pics on here it seems that advance guide signs were changed from 1 mile--1/2mile to 2km--1km.
Quote from: jwolfer on June 21, 2012, 03:28:46 PMBut 30 does not sound hot to me.
do what we (used to) do - 32 isn't cold, 32 isn't hot, 0 and 90 sound right, however, so you use Celsius in winter, and Fahrenheit in summer.
QuoteI can calculate km pretty easily. Someone says 500km i think 250 miles. 1km is more of less 1/2mile
1 mile is 1609m. 1km is 1100yards, half a mile is 880yds. 1.6km in a mile, 0.6miles in a km. Doubling just leads to problems.
1-2-3-5-8-13-21... - the lower number of miles in km is approximately the next one up in the series. 20mph=30km/h, 30mph=50km/h, 50mph=80km/h, 80mph=130km/h is a pretty useful guide (though Canada, unlike Europe, doesn't do 130km/h).
500km is 300 miles - only 10 miles out, not 60!
Quote from: jwolfer on June 21, 2012, 03:28:46 PM
This question is for you Canadians or Australians who can remember the change over to metric. Canada and Australia seem to have fully embraced the change as far as roads more than the UK. When i was in early elementary school I remember learning the metric measurements and begin told we would be changing over by 1980... here we are 31 years later. The biggest use of metric in the US are liquor bottles and 2L soda. Science as well I have a bachelors degree in Biology and i think of freezing/boiling as 0/100. But 30 does not sound hot to me. Australian TV shows and documentaries or House Hunters International every one is comfortable using meters.
How long did it take to "think" in metric? I can calculate km pretty easily. Someone says 500km i think 250 miles. 1km is more of less 1/2mile and from pics on here it seems that advance guide signs were changed from 1 mile--1/2mile to 2km--1km.
Canada decided to just plunge in. No period of posting in dual units. The changeover date was announced years ahead of time, all the new signs positioned, so when the date arrived they were changed within a couple of weeks.
During my recent road trip to Canada, it took about a week. I was just getting used to not having to convert in my head when it was time to come back.
Canada may have plunged in signage-wise, but in the psyche, they are very mush dual units. Their building trades completely rejected metric and only use imperial units (watch Holmes on Homes sometime - Canadian crew in Ontario, and they use imperial units for their construction work).
Medicine dosage is also always in mg, and increasingly liquid OTC meds dose in mL instead of tsp/tbsp. And colloquially you'll often hear people use mm for lengths under an inch instead of fractions. For repairing things, I rarely touch my non-metric wrenches anymore.
You forgot the other SI units we use regularly - Volts, Amps, Watts, seconds, Hertz, etc. :)
It's not just liquor and soda in liters. .5 L is a very standard bottled water size, and most liquid storage containers (Nalgene bottles, CamelBacks, and the like) are in L. I'd say that of all the standard metric measurements, liters are the ones that most Americans have a good understanding of since it's the one most often encountered.
Metrication took place in Australia between 1970 and 1988
Here is an example of a new metric sign with kilometre patch that was meant to be removed later.
It says:
[135]
Heddon Greta 3
Gillieston Heights 8
Maitland 13
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ozroads.com.au%2FNSW%2FRouteNumbering%2FState%2520Routes%2F135%2F08.JPG&hash=946d0be8dca396ed41a65494c9acbd09a5e10d72)
Here is an article on Metrication in Australia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_Australia).
I don't think the US will ever not use imperial units for length and weight. I'm an engineering student and we do use the metric system because obviously everyone else does, but everything project wise is imperial (very rarely metric), i personally like imperial since im used to it. i think the balance we have is working fine, with the advent of smart phones unit converters make life a lot easier.
anyway i was surprised to know that in england they still use feet yards inches and miles on most of their roads
Miles are certainly easier to deal with when traveling in relatively flat PLSS areas.
Canada has some even greater distances of nothingness than the US and they get along with km just fine. Yes, the numbers are about 60% larger. But with a little getting used to, that's meaningless.
Although, one point of perhaps minor inconvenience: Canada does not have any freeways longer than 1000 km. But the US does have a few (I-10 and I-20 in Texas, I-5 in California), bringing up the issue of 4-digit exit numbers.
Quote from: Duke87 on June 21, 2012, 09:19:33 PM
Canada has some even greater distances of nothingness than the US and they get along with km just fine. Yes, the numbers are about 60% larger. But with a little getting used to, that's meaningless.
Although, one point of perhaps minor inconvenience: Canada does not have any freeways longer than 1000 km. But the US does have a few (I-10 and I-20 in Texas, I-5 in California), bringing up the issue of 4-digit exit numbers.
Yet, Canada used a variation of PLSS when subdividing the Prairies based on mile and even two-mile lines, using sections and acres. Kilometers and hectares just don't fit what's on the ground.
At most grocery stores I've visited in Canada, they have a paper conversion chart from kilograms to pounds taped next to the scales. The scales measure in kilograms, of course, but they keep the conversions handy because so many American tourists and Canadian old people persist in using the wrong units to the point where it's easier just to have a chart showing the kg equivalents of the old measurements.
One thing that irks me is that my car (a 2004 Acura TL) lets me change the sat-nav to metric to match the road signs, but it has no option to change the digital odometer to metric. So when it tells you to turn in 1 km (which it mispronounces as "kill-AH-metre" instead of "KILL-o-metre"), if you need to use the odometer to confirm the distance you have to make a mental note that it's around six-tenths of a mile. It seems dumb to me to have a digital odometer without a conversion button. Programming the algorithm seems like a basic thing.
I've trained myself to think in dual temperature units, and I can use distance when I go to Canada. I would say it took months of using both to really adjust. The USA is going to have a very tough time converting because too many older people resist change.
Kill-o-meter sounds like you're petitioning someone named Meter to kill someone else while in a Shakespeare play. Kill-ah-meter just sounds more normal IMO.
Quote from: silverback1065 on June 21, 2012, 08:30:57 PM
I don't think the US will ever not use imperial units for length and weight. I'm an engineering student and we do use the metric system because obviously everyone else does, but everything project wise is imperial (very rarely metric), i personally like imperial since im used to it. i think the balance we have is working fine, with the advent of smart phones unit converters make life a lot easier.
The system you are using the U.S. system. Calling it Imperial will confuse everyone, especially if you use volume units. 1 U.S. gallon = 0.83 Imperial gallon.
Quote from: NE2 on June 21, 2012, 09:03:47 PM
Miles are certainly easier to deal with when traveling in relatively flat PLSS areas.
I don't see why. I just came back from a road trip from Seattle to Yellowknife. 800 km of very similar road on the Macenzie Highway doesn't seem any harder to deal with than 500 miles of very similar road in the states.
I know its officially the us customary system but for some reason everyone seems to call it imperial so thats why i said imperial
Quote from: realjd on June 21, 2012, 07:48:16 PM
You forgot the other SI units we use regularly - Volts, Amps, Watts, seconds, Hertz, etc. :)
Oh and our money. Its also interesting that the official US definition of pound etc are in SI units.
Quote from: kkt on June 22, 2012, 01:12:49 PM
Quote from: NE2 on June 21, 2012, 09:03:47 PM
Miles are certainly easier to deal with when traveling in relatively flat PLSS areas.
I don't see why. I just came back from a road trip from Seattle to Yellowknife. 800 km of very similar road on the Macenzie Highway doesn't seem any harder to deal with than 500 miles of very similar road in the states.
http://nationalatlas.gov/articles/boundaries/a_plss.html
Quote from: kkt on June 22, 2012, 01:12:49 PM
Quote from: NE2 on June 21, 2012, 09:03:47 PM
Miles are certainly easier to deal with when traveling in relatively flat PLSS areas.
I don't see why. I just came back from a road trip from Seattle to Yellowknife. 800 km of very similar road on the Macenzie Highway doesn't seem any harder to deal with than 500 miles of very similar road in the states.
The mostly flat PLSS areas are in the Midwest and Great Plains where you have roads every mile, along the section lines. 1 kilometer just does not match up to the road system the same way 1 mile does.
Quote from: jwolfer on June 21, 2012, 03:28:46 PM
This question is for you Canadians or Australians who can remember the change over to metric. Canada and Australia seem to have fully embraced the change as far as roads more than the UK. When i was in early elementary school I remember learning the metric measurements and begin told we would be changing over by 1980... here we are 31 years later. The biggest use of metric in the US are liquor bottles and 2L soda. Science as well I have a bachelors degree in Biology and i think of freezing/boiling as 0/100. But 30 does not sound hot to me. Australian TV shows and documentaries or House Hunters International every one is comfortable using meters.
How long did it take to "think" in metric? I can calculate km pretty easily. Someone says 500km i think 250 miles. 1km is more of less 1/2mile and from pics on here it seems that advance guide signs were changed from 1 mile--1/2mile to 2km--1km.
I was born and raised in the United States and have always had a Maryland-issued license, but have driven enough in continental Europe (I've
never dared to drive in Britain) to be comfortable in Metric when behind the wheel. The speed limits are reasonably easy to "convert," 30 k/h is about 20 MPH, 50 k/h is about 30 MPH, 70 k/h is about 45 MPH, 90 k/h is about 55 MPH, 110 k/h is about 70 MPH, 120 k/h is about 75 MPH and (best of all) 130 k/h is about 80 MPH.
Not at all that hard - the United States is stuck with its obsolete units of measure thanks to ... oh well, forget it - no reason to bash any particular segment of the population.
Quote from: cpzilliacus on June 23, 2012, 06:00:30 PM(I've never dared to drive in Britain)
Why not - we have nearly the safest roads in the world (I think a couple of other Western European countries have overtaken us recently on those stakes).
OK, I know why, but just because you drive on the wrong side of the road, doesn't mean that switching to the correct side of the road is such a horrific thing.
QuoteNot at all that hard - the United States is stuck with its obsolete units of measure thanks to ... oh well, forget it - no reason to bash any particular segment of the population.
No more obsolete than metric. Ironically (give where your bash was going) customary units evolved, whereas metric was created
ex nihilo. They exist for different purposes - metric is for 'enlightened' transcendence from the mundane everyday tasks (by being completely and utterly arbitrary - and deliberately so) and doing sums, whereas customary has evolved for estimation and specific tasks.
There's a reason why metrication has only happened by banning other units (the classic Napoleonic ploy), rather than because it's better, the alternatives are obsolete, etc...
Quote from: english si on June 23, 2012, 06:35:00 PM
Quote from: cpzilliacus on June 23, 2012, 06:00:30 PM(I've never dared to drive in Britain)
Why not - we have nearly the safest roads in the world (I think a couple of other Western European countries have overtaken us recently on those stakes).
My decision to not drive in the UK is in part because of having spent nearly my entire life on the right [hand] side of the road (except for some visits to Sweden prior to 1967).
Regarding safety - Sweden, perhaps?
Full disclosure - I am 1/4 Swedish (and 3/4 Finnish).Quote from: english si on June 23, 2012, 06:35:00 PM
OK, I know why, but just because you drive on the wrong side of the road, doesn't mean that switching to the correct side of the road is such a horrific thing.
Were I to spend some
significant time in the UK walking and using transit, I might take on the highway network on my own.
Quote from: english si on June 23, 2012, 06:35:00 PM
Quote from: cpzilliacus on June 23, 2012, 06:00:30 PM
Not at all that hard - the United States is stuck with its obsolete units of measure thanks to ... oh well, forget it - no reason to bash any particular segment of the population.
No more obsolete than metric. Ironically (give where your bash was going) customary units evolved, whereas metric was created ex nihilo. They exist for different purposes - metric is for 'enlightened' transcendence from the mundane everyday tasks (by being completely and utterly arbitrary - and deliberately so) and doing sums, whereas customary has evolved for estimation and specific tasks.
There's a reason why metrication has only happened by banning other units (the classic Napoleonic ploy), rather than because it's better, the alternatives are obsolete, etc...
In spite of what many anti-Metric types in the U.S. claim, it's not about conforming to a
French system of measurement. I believe Tom Jefferson was a proponent of something that might have became known as the Metric system (see Wikipedia article here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_for_Establishing_Uniformity_in_the_Coinage,_Weights,_and_Measures_of_the_United_States)).
Of course, all spirits sold in the U.S. are marketed in Metric bottles, all prescription drugs are dispensed in Metric units and all (or very nearly all) automotive parts are now Metric, even for so-called "American" vehicles, though the anti-Metric folks are probably not aware of that (a 750 cl bottle of liquor is still called a "fifth" [of a gallon]).
I'm a Civil Tech and graduated just as metric was being introduced in the late "˜70s. Took a bit to get used to but would I go back.....no way....just so much easier! All our road and municipal servicing designs are metric but a lot of buildings are still done in Imperial......a 4X8 sheet of plywood is still a 4x8 sheet of plywood!
I used to do a lot of speed, distance and temperature conversions in my head but really no need to now. I know when the weatherman says it going to be in the low 30s today.....its hot. Or sunny and -3, it's a great ski day!
Quote from: cpzilliacus on June 23, 2012, 06:00:30 PM
Quote from: jwolfer on June 21, 2012, 03:28:46 PM
This question is for you Canadians or Australians who can remember the change over to metric. Canada and Australia seem to have fully embraced the change as far as roads more than the UK. When i was in early elementary school I remember learning the metric measurements and begin told we would be changing over by 1980... here we are 31 years later. The biggest use of metric in the US are liquor bottles and 2L soda. Science as well I have a bachelors degree in Biology and i think of freezing/boiling as 0/100. But 30 does not sound hot to me. Australian TV shows and documentaries or House Hunters International every one is comfortable using meters.
How long did it take to "think" in metric? I can calculate km pretty easily. Someone says 500km i think 250 miles. 1km is more of less 1/2mile and from pics on here it seems that advance guide signs were changed from 1 mile--1/2mile to 2km--1km.
I was born and raised in the United States and have always had a Maryland-issued license, but have driven enough in continental Europe (I've never dared to drive in Britain) to be comfortable in Metric when behind the wheel. The speed limits are reasonably easy to "convert," 30 k/h is about 20 MPH, 50 k/h is about 30 MPH, 70 k/h is about 45 MPH, 90 k/h is about 55 MPH, 110 k/h is about 70 MPH, 120 k/h is about 75 MPH and (best of all) 130 k/h is about 80 MPH.
Not at all that hard - the United States is stuck with its obsolete units of measure thanks to ... oh well, forget it - no reason to bash any particular segment of the population.
(1) What's obsolete about it?
(2) I've yet to hear a good reason to convert. And conformity with "the rest of the world [sic]" is not, to my mind, a good reason.
Quote from: cpzilliacus on June 23, 2012, 06:49:36 PMIn spite of what many anti-Metric types in the U.S. claim, it's not about conforming to a French system of measurement. I believe Tom Jefferson was a proponent of something that might have became known as the Metric system (see Wikipedia article here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_for_Establishing_Uniformity_in_the_Coinage,_Weights,_and_Measures_of_the_United_States)).
Tom Jefferson, the massive Franco-phile - hardly a ringing "its not something French" endorsement...
That said, that wasn't my point - my point was that you need a stick to get people to convert - metric is not the carrot that some people seem to think it is.
QuoteOf course, all spirits sold in the U.S. are marketed in Metric bottles, all prescription drugs are dispensed in Metric units and all (or very nearly all) automotive parts are now Metric, even for so-called "American" vehicles, though the anti-Metric folks are probably not aware of that (a 750 cl bottle of liquor is still called a "fifth" [of a gallon]).
I'm not anti-Metric, I'm anti-anti-other units.
I'm perfectly happy for some stuff to be in metric - there are things that it works better for, like parts, but there are things that I find work better in other units. I work bi-lingually when it comes to units, though for everyday things I am less fluent in metric.
As for 'fifth's: in France and Germany, and lots of places 500g is often called 'pound' (but in their lingo) rather than half-kilo. Yes even France - even in France they haven't bought in to the Metric system fully, as being designed to deliberately ignore and keep out the everyday, everyday things like going to the market are easier with approximations of the banned old units.
I'm not happy when people treat those who don't use metric as some backwards hicks or idiots (especially funny when they then complain that other units are too confusing for their own small brains to cope with), or push for conformity without giving another reason than conformity is good.
The reason I don't like US units is because I have no idea what the hell most of them are, even as a 20-something American.
The other day I decided to make queso and bought a block of cheese for it. Before when I made it, I used a 1-lb bag of shredded cheese, and I wanted to see if it was any better if I shredded the cheese myself. The block I bought was 8 oz.
I am not the sort of person who is good with memorizing conversion tables–I still struggle to remember parts of the times tables–and after I shredded the cheese up, it looked like a lot less than before. I looked at the package. 8 oz. Despite encountering ounces frequently I appear to have never bothered to remember how many ounces were in a pound. I had to ask my girlfriend. Turns out there's 16 ounces in a pound. Weird. If I had to guess I would have thought it was 12.
No there's 12 inches in a foot
Ever since I began conversing in a Worldwide forvm such that the internet is back in the 1990s, I have become much more comfortable and conversant using metric units - many of those on-line from outside of the USA know nothing else - and I, too, often have troubles keeping the other 'customary' units and their relationships straight.
One of the most striking areas here for me is that in recent years, especially, my mind has been wanting temperatures to be given in degrees above or below the freezing point of water (freezes at '0'/boils at sea level at '100' - the Celsius scale), not the strangely arbitrary zero and boiling figures that are now popularly used in the USA.
Mike
Quote from: mgk920 on June 24, 2012, 12:03:52 AM
One of the most striking areas here for me is that in recent years, especially, my mind has been wanting temperatures to be given in degrees above or below the freezing point of water (freezes at '0'/boils at sea level at '100' - the Celsius scale), not the strangely arbitrary zero and boiling figures that are now popularly used in the USA.
Using water is just as arbitrary. Rankin or Kelvin is the only somewhat non-arbitrary method.
Quote from: english si on June 23, 2012, 06:35:00 PM
OK, I know why, but just because you drive on the wrong side of the road, doesn't mean that switching to the correct side of the road is such a horrific thing.
So 2/3 - 3/4 of the world is doing it wrong? ;)
Quote from: mgk920 on June 24, 2012, 12:03:52 AM
Ever since I began conversing in a Worldwide forvm such that the internet is back in the 1990s, I have become much more comfortable and conversant using metric units - many of those on-line from outside of the USA know nothing else - and I, too, often have troubles keeping the other 'customary' units and their relationships straight.
I get around that problem by not caring what the relationships are.
QuoteOne of the most striking areas here for me is that in recent years, especially, my mind has been wanting temperatures to be given in degrees above or below the freezing point of water (freezes at '0'/boils at sea level at '100' - the Celsius scale), not the strangely arbitrary zero and boiling figures that are now popularly used in the USA.
Fahrenheit sets 0 as the average lowest temperature in Europe and 100 at the highest average. It's worth noting that the scale was developed in the far north where it rarely got above the freezing point, so it wasn't even a consideration. I don't see why we NEED the freezing point to be 0, though a multiple of 10 would be nice.
It's better than using the Romer temperature scale (did I spell it right?) where water freezes at 6.7 (6.8?) because the 0 point is where water freezes when mixed with salt.
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 23, 2012, 09:03:15 PM
Turns out there's 16 ounces in a pound. Weird. If I had to guess I would have thought it was 12.
Well, if you're using Troy measure (usually used for precious metals), there
are 12 ounces in a pound. :)
Yes, one of the, urhm, charming things about customary measures is that there are so many different ones with the same name. Troy, avoirdupois, or fluid ounces; U.S. or Imperial gallons; U.S., Imperial, or nautical miles; for a laugh look up the surveyor's inch.
Quote from: NE2 on June 24, 2012, 02:25:56 AM
Using water is just as arbitrary. Rankin or Kelvin is the only somewhat non-arbitrary method.
Lots of natural processes on Earth are based on freezing or boiling. Weather, plant growth, animal behavior,...
If you're calculating thermodynamics, you do need a scale that starts at absolute zero. But most of the time you're not calculating thermo.
Note that Kelvin or Rankine still have the arbitrary size of the degree.
Quote from: kkt on June 24, 2012, 01:50:49 PM
Quote from: NE2 on June 24, 2012, 02:25:56 AM
Using water is just as arbitrary. Rankin or Kelvin is the only somewhat non-arbitrary method.
Lots of natural processes on Earth are based on freezing or boiling. Weather, plant growth, animal behavior,...
Freezing, maybe. (Even then you get various effects at temperatures somewhat removed from freezing.) Boiling?
And why does any temperature need to be a multiple of anything? You can't multiply temperatures on scales that are not zeroed to absolute zero.
Quote from: Michael in Philly on June 23, 2012, 07:20:57 PM
Quote from: cpzilliacus on June 23, 2012, 06:00:30 PM
Not at all that hard - the United States is stuck with its obsolete units of measure thanks to ... oh well, forget it - no reason to bash any particular segment of the population.
(1) What's obsolete about it?
A system of measures and weights imposed by the Crown - who does not rule over the United States.
Quote from: Michael in Philly on June 23, 2012, 07:20:57 PM
(2) I've yet to hear a good reason to convert. And conformity with "the rest of the world [sic]" is not, to my mind, a good reason.
Our NAFTA trading partners don't use the British Imperial system of weights and measures. Our EU partners don't use it. Not even the Red Chinese, so beloved by many that oppose conversion to Metric in the U.S., don't use it.
Quote from: english si on June 23, 2012, 08:05:09 PM
Quote from: cpzilliacus on June 23, 2012, 06:49:36 PMIn spite of what many anti-Metric types in the U.S. claim, it's not about conforming to a French system of measurement. I believe Tom Jefferson was a proponent of something that might have became known as the Metric system (see Wikipedia article here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_for_Establishing_Uniformity_in_the_Coinage,_Weights,_and_Measures_of_the_United_States)).
Tom Jefferson, the massive Franco-phile - hardly a ringing "its not something French" endorsement...
He was the U.S. minister to the French government, at a time when the U.S. needed friends. He was also Governor of Virginia and President of the United States.
He also (apparently) fathered children by Sally Hemings, a slave woman that he owned. What else do you want to bash Jefferson for?
Quote from: english si on June 23, 2012, 08:05:09 PM
That said, that wasn't my point - my point was that you need a stick to get people to convert - metric is not the carrot that some people seem to think it is.
QuoteOf course, all spirits sold in the U.S. are marketed in Metric bottles, all prescription drugs are dispensed in Metric units and all (or very nearly all) automotive parts are now Metric, even for so-called "American" vehicles, though the anti-Metric folks are probably not aware of that (a 750 cl bottle of liquor is still called a "fifth" [of a gallon]).
I'm not anti-Metric, I'm anti-anti-other units.
I am pro-Metric. The rest of the world is not about to adopt Imperial units of measure.
Quote from: english si on June 23, 2012, 08:05:09 PM
I'm perfectly happy for some stuff to be in metric - there are things that it works better for, like parts, but there are things that I find work better in other units. I work bi-lingually when it comes to units, though for everyday things I am less fluent in metric.
As for 'fifth's: in France and Germany, and lots of places 500g is often called 'pound' (but in their lingo) rather than half-kilo. Yes even France - even in France they haven't bought in to the Metric system fully, as being designed to deliberately ignore and keep out the everyday, everyday things like going to the market are easier with approximations of the banned old units.
I'm not happy when people treat those who don't use metric as some backwards hicks or idiots (especially funny when they then complain that other units are too confusing for their own small brains to cope with), or push for conformity without giving another reason than conformity is good.
I've no problem dealing with Metric units (especially distances of measure).
Sweden has a "Swedish mile" (
svensk mil) used informally, which is 10 kilometers.
The U.S. (and, I believe, the UK) have already gone Metric in many ways, as discussed above. The time to convert the highway network to Metric is long overdue (at least in the U.S.). I do not live in the UK, so I will not express an opinion regarding conversion to Metric there.
Quote from: cpzilliacus on June 25, 2012, 12:00:31 AM
Quote from: Michael in Philly on June 23, 2012, 07:20:57 PM
Quote from: cpzilliacus on June 23, 2012, 06:00:30 PM
Not at all that hard - the United States is stuck with its obsolete units of measure thanks to ... oh well, forget it - no reason to bash any particular segment of the population.
(1) What's obsolete about it?
A system of measures and weights imposed by the Crown - who does not rule over the United States.
Hahahahahaha. If we choose to use customary units, they're not "imposed" by anyone. Or would you change all our place names that date back to Colonial times?
I'm a staunch proponent of the idea that Imperial should always be used for roads and for dispense of fuel.
For instance: in fuel expense, 3.59 or .97, which sounds worse? One is per gallon and one is per litre.
Or: which sounds like more, 3 or 1.8? One is miles per hour and one is kilometres per hour, but they are both the tolerance you get from speedcams in Victoria.
Tell people they're going to get 1.8 over and that's it and they're going to be pissed...but 3, that sounds semi-reasonable.
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fs3.amazonaws.com%2Ftheoatmeal-img%2Fcomics%2Fsenior_year%2Fheader.png&hash=b1e1103f3d8c4757146ae1c902a8b9eb8f1f37c4)
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There's nothing wrong with our system its not that hard to remember a few converting factors. At least we dont have over ten names for the same unit and remembering the factor for those can be just as annoying. Its so much easier doing engineering calculations in us customery units theres only 4 units to remember foot pound kip and inch. Whas wrong with our units? Doing work with them yields answers just as accurate as using metric.
Quote from: cpzilliacus on June 25, 2012, 12:00:31 AMA system of measures and weights imposed by the Crown - who does not rule over the United States.
Nope. I don't see where any of it was imposed by the Crown, post-1783. Your federal government controls weights and measures and has done for nearly 250 years. Look at the different amounts with liquid units - your fl oz are bigger than ours, though your pints and gallons are smaller.
QuoteOur NAFTA trading partners don't use the British Imperial system of weights and measures. Our EU partners don't use it. Not even the Red Chinese, so beloved by many that oppose conversion to Metric in the U.S., don't use it.
Are we not (by far) your biggest EU partner? I think you'll find earlier in your post you declared customary measures to be an imposition of our Crown.
Quote from: cpzilliacus on June 25, 2012, 12:10:44 AMHe was the U.S. minister to the French government, at a time when the U.S. needed friends. He was also Governor of Virginia and President of the United States.
He also (apparently) fathered children by Sally Hemings, a slave woman that he owned. What else do you want to bash Jefferson for?
I wasn't bashing Jefferson (though I will now), I was bashing your point that it's not a French system. Jefferson was a huge Franco-phile and was almost unique in wanting the US to return the favour of the French helping getting rid of Dictator George by supporting France's Dictator Boney keep his empire (the US remained neutral - it didn't want to upset it's ally and help it's old enemy, but it didn't want to help keep Europe subjected to what it so recently had liberated itself of). Of course he loved the Metric system - he loved a murderous tyrant simply because he was French and hated a less-bad tyrant because he was English - why wouldn't he strongly prefer the French system over the British-based system - even if the French system wasn't as good?
QuoteQuote from: english si on June 23, 2012, 08:05:09 PMI'm not anti-Metric, I'm anti-anti-other units.
I am pro-Metric. The rest of the world is not about to adopt Imperial units of measure.
So basically, following the reasoning you have given for you being pro-Metric, you are a conformity zealot. Especially given the context of what I said, I guess you support English-as-the-national-language, wouldn't teach foreign languages in schools, would desire the 40% of the world that doesn't speak English to learn the
lingua fraca because the rest of the world isn't going to adopt French, Spanish, Arabic (or anything other than perhaps Manderin Chinese) as the language they speak in. And not just that, but block other languages from being used in any official capacity.
You'd be for suppression of Occitan, Basque, Catalan, Breton, Alsatian, etc as the rest of France (Paris and it's hinterland - perhaps about 20% of the population) isn't going to adopt these languages (using a French metaphor, as it's clear that you have a mindset that is incredibly post-revolution French of "conform to the ideal we set or else") as the trade language and as such people shouldn't be taught, or perhaps even not allowed to speak, other languages.
Thankfully for your country, Jefferson was out the country when the constitution was written. He had a hand in the first French one and the story of France ever since has been suppression of minority views, dictatorships and near-continuous revolutions.
QuoteThe U.S. (and, I believe, the UK) have already gone Metric in many ways, as discussed above. The time to convert the highway network to Metric is long overdue (at least in the U.S.). I do not live in the UK, so I will not express an opinion regarding conversion to Metric there.
We've gone metric where it's useful to go metric (and perhaps further) - if it's useful and beneficial, then the UK certainly would have gone over. The Highways Agency have done several studies and found that the cost of confusing foreigners (which is far far greater in the UK, given that we have lots of foreign trucks, etc - and these foreign trucks have far less exposure to miles, etc than the ones in the US) isn't worth the cost. We're dual signing all height and width units, because it's worth it there, but not the distance and speed units.
I had no formal school education in imperial. We had 'conversion' on the maths syllabus at various points. We only had to memorize them at age 16, and even then it was 25.4mm in a inch and perhaps 454g in a pound and 568ml in a (UK) pint. We didn't ever have to convert between different imperial units or anything like that. We did have an afternoon aged 11/12 where the teacher was bored so taught us how to do sums in £sd, and lbs/ozs, etc. Pretty basic base theory - not difficult maths at all (and I find that Germans can't do fractions - even those who are good at maths, simply because they aren't taught them), you just had to remember that 12d was 1s, 20s was £1 (and we would have no problem with £sd today - other than maybe a half shilling, we have no use for anything smaller than 1s).
I was probably in the most exposed-to-other-measuring-systems year group since the 50s - it's been on-off on-off. But people in the UK often use imperial for all sorts of everyday things. And while only a similar debate, even the uber-lefty, anti-populist, rag that my parents get gives temperatures in both C and F. Simply teaching metric and only metric - even from the age of 5 - doesn't make us think in metric (some people, yes, OK). Mushing - only way to get it to work - beat down the opposition.
I also find it amusing that rather than standardized everyday things (making estimation way more intutive) the cartoon is saying that it makes more sense that we should use a system of units that is (originally) based on a metal rod in Paris that is a calculated measure of 100 trillionths of the distance between the North Pole (which no one had ever been to at the time, though the measurement was very close) and the Equator on the Parisian meridian. Yeh, like that's a useful amount of measure to base a who system of measurement on.
I find the let's-not-confuse-foreigners argument a bit silly when we (English-speakers, and I know I'm generalizing, which I hate) don't bat an eyelid at assuming everyone will be fluent in English....
English si, did you see the article in the Telegraph a month or so ago about some peer who wanted the UK to convert to metric in time for the Olympics? I don't know who was going to drop everything and change all the road signs in a month....
I'm curious to know if people think the US will always use Imperial units or if we'll stay the one and only country anyone cares about that uses it.
Before answering take note, yes the entire world uses metric and there is pressure to change, but if we dipped in it, almost 40 years ago for one of the first widespread uses, then dumped it, what makes anyone think they'd wanna change now? I cant ever see the US changing.
Hope to get some people who disagree so I can get some new ideas on it.
The USA does not use 'Imperial' units, those are US Customary units. 'Imperial' units are completely different. Still, just a couple of days ago at work, we had to buy bottles of Coke from a local store and when going over the receipt, I was scratching my head for a few seconds about the notation of "67(something)ZCoke". We bought a couple of cases of 2 liter bottles and I was wondering why it wasn't saying "2LCoke".
Also, if you really want to have some fun, go to a Subway, order some food, get the largest soda cup that they have and ask how it relates, sizewise, to a 1 or 2 liter bottle.
On that note, one area where it is very possible for a full 'metric' conversion to occur 'under the radar' (so to speak) in the USA is in product packaging. There is a long-term push under way to eliminate the requirement to display 'US Customary' units in product package declarations in the USA from the FPLA (Fair Package Labeling Act) and various state regulations, this in order to allow manufacturers to use a single line of packaging for their various product lines, wherever in the World they are intended to be shipped to, saving them money. Recall that the EU is working to *prohibit* non-metric declarations on product packages and this would help to further open export markets to USA manufacturers.
Mike
Quote from: mgk920 on June 25, 2012, 11:38:51 AMRecall that the EU is working to *prohibit* non-metric declarations on product packages and this would help to further open export markets to USA manufacturers.
I'll bet some companies will just change their product slogan, like Jack Daniel's whiskey slogan officially says "Lynchburg, TN, pop. 341" so they can keep it that way even though Lynchburg is over 7000 now.
The meter isnt based on a metal rod its based on the speed of light now.
I find it easy to switch to kilometers when driving in México, and would even if my speedometer didn't have km/h on it. I highly doubt changing to metric on the road system would change very much. Cops switch from a 7-mph tolerance to a 12-km/h tolerance; the hardest thing would probably be advance exit sign relocation to more closely match intervals of 0.5 km. Even where rural farm roads are at mile intervals, it's not like switching to metric would require us to pick up the roads and move them over to a new location; it just means that acres would change to hectares. Most cars have km/h on their speedometers and, even if a car doesn't have it, it's really easy to estimate a conversion factor of 0.6 while driving until you get used to it; I do it all the time.
I also have the darnedest time remembering conversion factors within the customary unit system. How many fluid ounces are in a quarter cup? Who the heck knows? I've given up on trying to remember that kind of thing. In our kitchen, we have a big magnet with customary conversions on, like cups to quarts etc. It thoroughly confuses me–and I grew up with it, do fairly well at math, scored well in school, and measure things in the kitchen all the time. I'd really prefer metric, but I'm not sure how I would feel about measuring by weight, which is what they do in Europe and other places.
The hardest thing for me about going to a metric-using location is temperature. For some reason, I have a hard time knowing if I need short or long sleeves if the temperature is 20, 25, or 30 degrees; or whether or not I need a jacket if it's 10, 15, or 20 degrees. I know that I would easily be able to switch after spending just a few months using the system, though.
The metric system makes more sense to me + Most of the rest of the world uses metric, including our two land neighbors = I think we should switch.
However, I don't think it's likely in the next ten years. But, as people (my generation) learn metric more and more, and get used to using it in various applications, I think there will eventually be enough support to switch, just years down the road.
Quote from: kphoger on June 25, 2012, 01:47:17 PMI highly doubt changing to metric on the road system would change very much.
Indeed, and as such, why bother...
QuoteHow many fluid ounces are in a quarter cup? Who the heck knows?
Do you ever need that though? I can't see why you would need to.
And is it relevant to know feet in a mile or whatever for the roads?
QuoteHowever, I don't think it's likely in the next ten years. But, as people (my generation) learn metric more and more, and get used to using it in various applications, I think there will eventually be enough support to switch, just years down the road.
UK experience says "not unless you ban other units".
As I said, I have had next-to-no formal customary measures education and I'm one of the few who've even had something that isn't in their 60s. But do we use metric - sometimes, but not others. We can't buy anything (other than supermarket milk that is sold in 568ml multiples with the nice 1, 2, 4, 6 pint number written in large numbers on the side) in obvious customary units (though, of course, there's tons of stuff that weighs 454g or other 'suspicious' amounts), but yet we still don't embrace metric. The only thing that has noticably shifted is weather - moving from mainly thinking in F about 30 years ago, through the C in winter/F in summer phase to be the F only being talked about when it's above 85 (so not heard at all this year). Only the BBC weather doesn't give F in summer though, and newspaper weather is dual units, with C favoured, year round.
Quote from: kphoger on June 25, 2012, 01:47:17 PMEven where rural farm roads are at mile intervals, it's not like switching to metric would require us to pick up the roads and move them over to a new location; it just means that acres would change to hectares.
But it would mean a loss of easy multiplicative relationships, which are key to popular understanding of the PLSS. One square mile = one full section; one square six miles by six miles = 36 full sections = one township; etc. All of that can be converted to metric in a relatively straightforward way but the numbers involved are not nice round integers and while there is very widespread vernacular knowledge of, say, the acre as an unit (640 acres in a full section), I for one would not know how large a hectare is unless I looked up the definition.
QuoteI also have the darnedest time remembering conversion factors within the customary unit system. How many fluid ounces are in a quarter cup? Who the heck knows?
Two fluid ounces. (I admit I came at this by an indirect route: I remember that while the US pint is 16 fluid ounces, the Imperial pint is 20 fluid ounces, and since a pint is two cups in the US system, one-quarter of a cup is two fluid ounces. The US and Imperial fluid ounces differ by about 3%, the Imperial fluid ounce being the larger.)
QuoteI've given up on trying to remember that kind of thing. In our kitchen, we have a big magnet with customary conversions on, like cups to quarts etc. It thoroughly confuses me–and I grew up with it, do fairly well at math, scored well in school, and measure things in the kitchen all the time. I'd really prefer metric, but I'm not sure how I would feel about measuring by weight, which is what they do in Europe and other places.
I would not like to try to do structural engineering in customary units, not just because it is here that the multiplicative relationships are unintuitive, but also because the results of standard computations are not dimensionally correct. In fact, the metric-units initiatives which state DOTs embraced in the 1990's (until the backlash set in in the 2000's) were heavily promoted by the structural side for precisely this reason. But convenience in technical fields does not translate into convenience in everyday computations.
I am not fond of mass measurements for baking ingredients and consider both this, and the lack of standardization for some volume measurements (what is a "dessertspoon," for example?), a definite drawback of cookbooks produced not just in continental Europe but also in the UK, where cooking has been partly metricated.
QuoteThe hardest thing for me about going to a metric-using location is temperature. For some reason, I have a hard time knowing if I need short or long sleeves if the temperature is 20, 25, or 30 degrees; or whether or not I need a jacket if it's 10, 15, or 20 degrees. I know that I would easily be able to switch after spending just a few months using the system, though.
I have trouble with this too, except I am familiar enough with 30° C as a ballpark temperature to know I don't want a long-sleeved shirt. My own approach to coping is to double the Celsius temperature and add it to 30 when I need a ballpark figure (by this approach, for example, 30° C is approximated as 90° F, which is off by four degrees--the true conversion is 86° F precisely--but is close enough to allow me to choose appropriate clothing or, in this case, the lack of it).
But actually I don't rely solely on reported temperature values to make these judgments. This is largely because the overwhelming majority of my time in Celsius-using regions has been in Britain, which, though the average temperature is not that much (if any) cooler than in Kansas, has a maritime climate with a high likelihood of cloud cover and daytime temperatures for much of the year which straddle my personal transition points between jacket + scarf + sweatshirt + short-sleeved shirt, jacket + sweatshirt + short-sleeved shirt, sweatshirt + short-sleeved shirt, and short-sleeved shirt only (I wear trousers with all of these unless temperatures are no more than slightly above freezing, in which case I also add long johns). Many times the decisive factors for me are whether there is unblocked sunshine (as opposed to "brightness"), whether I will be in it for an appreciable portion of the time--I feel about ten degrees (F) warmer in the sun, especially since I tend to favor dark clothes--and also whether I can expect a significant amount of convective cooling from wind.
In Britain it is just not the done thing for climate-control systems to offer pointed challenges to outdoor conditions. In the winter you are expected to tolerate a mild degree of indoor chill, and in the summer you are expected to tolerate a certain amount of indoor stuffiness. People like to complain about excessive heat in the winter and, if air-conditioning were more common (I can count on the fingers of one hand the buildings I have been in Britain that I knew were air-conditioned, one of them being the National Archives in Kew), people would complain about feeling chilled in high summer. (Current advice to new readers at the National Archives: "Bring a jumper in case you feel chilly.") I have found intelligent layering allows me to cope with whatever the conditions are, indoors or outdoors, without feeling
driven to complain (as opposed to, say, joining in a whinge about the weather or climate control for the sake of being sociable).
Given this climate and the cultural complex that goes with it, I have found the best way to gauge temperature for purposes of comfortable dress is just to go out in midmorning and try out whatever I am wearing.
QuoteThe metric system makes more sense to me + Most of the rest of the world uses metric, including our two land neighbors = I think we should switch.
I disagree. I don't consider either reason to be a sufficient justification for switching to metric. Rather, with some isolated exceptions such as the rollback of metrication in state DOTs, I think we have "found our level" with regard to metric conversion: where metric is clearly more convenient than customary units, we already use metric. Wholesale metric conversion would impose switching costs even in contexts where metric is clearly the better system to adopt
de novo, so it is reasonable to ask whether those switching costs will be amortized over time. In some cases they will while in others they won't. In still other contexts, metric not only imposes switchover costs, but is also manifestly the less convenient system to use. In these cases it is a bad idea to convert to metric. I don't see this calculus as being greatly influenced (in any country) by the prevalence or otherwise of metric education.
An insistence on wholesale metric conversion, in any context and for any purpose, overlooks an important basic function of a measurement system--affording people the ability to visualize and talk about quantities,
in a convenient way.
I understand both customary and metric, and prefer customary for ordinary measures... precisely because it relies on ambiguous associations with tangible objects. That makes it easier to "eyeball" measurements.
I also prefer Fahrenheit, because it's ideal for a temperate climate like the one I live in. For a related reason, I think Celsius is better in an international context, since it isn't as dependent on a particular climate to have meaning.
While I can see how Celsius might be better for colder climates (0c vs 32F), I believe Fahrenheit is much better in warmer climates (35c vs 95F). The use of triple digits make really hot days standout more in my mind.
Also, how would the pro-metric folks handle the following (and by "handle" I mean would you keep the customary units or force those in the sport to "go metric")...
Baseball -- 90 feet between bases
Football -- 100 yard fields
Basketball -- 10 foot high baskets
Bowling* -- 60ft lanes, each board is 1-inch wide, pins are 3 lbs 6-9 ozs, all bowling balls are weighed in pounds.
*I'm throwing this one in because I am an active league bowler... would I have to look for 6.80388 kg (15 lb) bowling balls if we went metric?
Personally, I say just leave things as is.
Not to mention 90-degree turns, 24-hour days....
Decimalize everything, dammit! :-)
JN, you have a very different internal thermometer from me. I tend to be wearing short sleeves even if it is as cold as 55 fahrenheit... sometimes as low as 20 fahrenheit if I am in the sun and strenuously working. (that involves a snow shovel a lot of the time!)
Quote from: Michael in Philly on June 25, 2012, 03:10:13 PM
Not to mention 90-degree turns, 24-hour days....
Decimalize everything, dammit! :-)
365-day years... we must change the solar system to match our hands!
Quote from: agentsteel53 on June 25, 2012, 03:23:13 PMJN, you have a very different internal thermometer from me. I tend to be wearing short sleeves even if it is as cold as 55 fahrenheit... sometimes as low as 20 fahrenheit if I am in the sun and strenuously working. (that involves a snow shovel a lot of the time!)
That is definitely a big difference--even to shovel snow in the sun, I would be wearing at least a jacket, scarf, sweatshirt, and short-sleeved shirt, plus long johns if I expected my trousers to get wet--but I know other people who have even more trouble with the cold than I do, and insist on a tropical environment indoors.
Quote from: myosh_tino on June 25, 2012, 03:07:50 PM
Also, how would the pro-metric folks handle the following (and by "handle" I mean would you keep the customary units or force those in the sport to "go metric")...
Baseball -- 90 feet between bases
Football -- 100 yard fields
Basketball -- 10 foot high baskets
Bowling* -- 60ft lanes, each board is 1-inch wide, pins are 3 lbs 6-9 ozs, all bowling balls are weighed in pounds.
*I'm throwing this one in because I am an active league bowler... would I have to look for 6.80388 kg (15 lb) bowling balls if we went metric?
Personally, I say just leave things as is.
I would imagine in most matters of sport, traditional weights and measures would still apply, especially since most of our favorite sports treat the basic playing fields' dimensions as sporting law as framework for the rules.
Let's face it, other than football, I can't think of anything else that uses "yards" except for describing lengths of cloth, and sometimes flooring or carpeting (although square foot is also common).
There's slightly different dimensions for international basketball courts. Not sure about baseball. A tennis court is a tennis court.
Interestingly, NASCAR seems to embrace the metric system: Many of its "500"'s are defined as kilometers, but actually about 312 miles. Although this is really a matter of convenience, because an event with "500" in it sounds a lot more interesting, apparently.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on June 25, 2012, 03:23:13 PM
JN, you have a very different internal thermometer from me. I tend to be wearing short sleeves even if it is as cold as 55 fahrenheit... sometimes as low as 20 fahrenheit if I am in the sun and strenuously working. (that involves a snow shovel a lot of the time!)
You can always tell a Floridian getting off the plane in San Diego because we're the ones putting on jackets!
Temperatures below 70 are when I grab a light fleece jacket. :)
Quote from: formulanone on June 25, 2012, 05:41:44 PM
Interestingly, NASCAR seems to embrace the metric system: Many of its "500"'s are defined as kilometers, but actually about 312 miles. Although this is really a matter of convenience, because an event with "500" in it sounds a lot more interesting, apparently.
I think, kind sir, that you are confused. Most tracks are not a mile in length, so maybe you're thinking of events that run an odd number of laps to make the 500-mile length of the race?
The only NASCAR events measured in kilometers are the two Phoenix races (one 500, one 600), and the Sonoma race (350). Other shorter tracks (Richmond, Martinsville, Bristol, Iowa) go by the laps in the race.
And then there's Watkins Glen, which is just the "(Sponsor) At The Glen".
Quote from: bulldog1979 on June 25, 2012, 07:09:27 PM
Quote from: formulanone on June 25, 2012, 05:41:44 PM
Interestingly, NASCAR seems to embrace the metric system: Many of its "500"'s are defined as kilometers, but actually about 312 miles. Although this is really a matter of convenience, because an event with "500" in it sounds a lot more interesting, apparently.
I think, kind sir, that you are confused. Most tracks are not a mile in length, so maybe you're thinking of events that run an odd number of laps to make the 500-mile length of the race?
Yes, that's true: There may never be 400/500 miles of Bristol (not a bad idea in theory, but a race might take twice as long) or Martinsville (a sleep-inducingly awful idea). I just recall there's lots more km-based "lap mileage", but maybe not as much I thought.
Pfft, I have shoveled snow in a t-shirt before. After you warm up a bit, a jacket becomes too hot to comfortably wear.
When I was your age we shoveled snow in fig leaves. Handmade fig leaves.
Quote from: formulanone on June 25, 2012, 09:35:54 PM
Quote from: bulldog1979 on June 25, 2012, 07:09:27 PM
Quote from: formulanone on June 25, 2012, 05:41:44 PM
Interestingly, NASCAR seems to embrace the metric system: Many of its "500"'s are defined as kilometers, but actually about 312 miles. Although this is really a matter of convenience, because an event with "500" in it sounds a lot more interesting, apparently.
I think, kind sir, that you are confused. Most tracks are not a mile in length, so maybe you're thinking of events that run an odd number of laps to make the 500-mile length of the race?
Yes, that's true: There may never be 400/500 miles of Bristol (not a bad idea in theory, but a race might take twice as long) or Martinsville (a sleep-inducingly awful idea). I just recall there's lots more km-based "lap mileage", but maybe not as much I thought.
I know next to nothing about auto racing, but could they be calling 312 miles "500" (km) to associate it with Indy?
Here is an interesting customary/metric difference... Illegal drugs. Cocaine is kilos, no one one ever talks about cocaine in pounds. However marijuana is usually talked about in Ounces/pounds. ( I saw this on COPS)
Besides its not as if you cant change to metric, make it official and not still use US units for things such as whats been mentioned. You hear Canada, UK, Aus, etc all still say Miles or whatever even if they're not talking to an American or anything.
Which is actually a strike against the the-rest-of-the-world-uses-metric argument....
Quote from: english si link=topic=6976.msg156669#msg156669 How many fluid ounces are in a quarter cup? Who the heck knows?/quote]Do you ever need that though? I can't see why you would need to.
Oh, yes, I certainly do need to know that kind of thing in my daily life. We find a recipe that calls for–I don't know, let's say 3.5 cups of beef stock. Then we go to the store, and find 32-ounce cartons of beef stock. Is that carton enough? Should we buy a carton plus a can? Who the heck knows!
Compare this to metric: the recipe says 800 mL, the store carries one-liter cartons, we're good to go.
Quote from: bulkyorled on June 26, 2012, 10:05:07 AM
Besides its not as if you cant change to metric, make it official and not still use US units for things such as whats been mentioned. You hear Canada, UK, Aus, etc all still say Miles or whatever even if they're not talking to an American or anything.
Expressions such as "a million miles away" are still used ... no one says "a million kilometers away". Although i found a website advocating that we should change expressions. I am pro metric conversion but the whole erase from the language is a bit much
Quote from: jwolfer on June 26, 2012, 11:01:19 AM
Quote from: bulkyorled on June 26, 2012, 10:05:07 AM
Besides its not as if you cant change to metric, make it official and not still use US units for things such as whats been mentioned. You hear Canada, UK, Aus, etc all still say Miles or whatever even if they're not talking to an American or anything.
Expressions such as "a million miles away" are still used ... no one says "a million kilometers away". Although i found a website advocating that we should change expressions. I am pro metric conversion but the whole erase from the language is a bit much
Of course. Conventional units wouldn't, and shouldn't, disappear from the world completely. Football still has yard lines, even if the official length of football field might be expressed in meters. Milk can still be sold in pints if you wish, but volume on the carton and in cookbooks would be expressed in mL. People in American geography class would still be taught that Kansas' township boundaries are expressed in terms of square miles, but properties within those boundaries would still be valued by the hectare; owning a 259-hectare farm instead of a one-section farm doesn't affect your farming practice in the slightest, and you would still talk about the northwest forty with your family and friends.
After all, we still call giving our opinion "putting in our two bits", even though decimal currency was adopted in 1794.
Talking of the purported need to conform with the rest of the world, just saw this, in a British paper:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/walterellis/100167582/americas-sports-are-as-weird-and-isolated-as-australias-animals-thank-goodness/
This particular columnist is fine with our having our own sports (which assumes he'd have the right not to be...), but I've been seeing this sort of thing - for our against - since the World Cup was here in 1994 and have never understood why it's an issue. It's this sort of harmless quirk - the sort of thing that makes it possible to tell where you are - that makes the world more interesting. I'm not arguing that preservation of customary measures is essential to our national identity (and I have nothing against metric as such), just that it's not doing any harm. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And I don't see any virtue in conformity for its own sake.
Quote from: kphoger on June 26, 2012, 10:50:31 AM
Quote from: english si link=topic=6976.msg156669#msg156669 How many fluid ounces are in a quarter cup? Who the heck knows?/quote]Do you ever need that though? I can't see why you would need to.
Oh, yes, I certainly do need to know that kind of thing in my daily life. We find a recipe that calls for–I don't know, let's say 3.5 cups of beef stock. Then we go to the store, and find 32-ounce cartons of beef stock. Is that carton enough? Should we buy a carton plus a can? Who the heck knows!
Compare this to metric: the recipe says 800 mL, the store carries one-liter cartons, we're good to go.
But hardly anyone thinks that way. They see "3.5 cups" and think "OK, I need a good bit, but not too much." Then they see the quart carton and think "that will be plenty." What's important is while 3.5 cups might be 28 oz, and a quart is 32 oz, both are "a good bit, but not a whole lot." Cooking by nature is inexact, so there's not much use for greater precision.
In my experience, the customary measures lend themselves to visualization and estimation much more intuitively than most of the metric measurements. That has to do with the ambiguous analogies with tangible objects that the comic above derides so acerbically. It's easy to develop a feel for these measurements without instruments.
I also think this is why metricated equivalents to customary measurements become standard sizes for things like drink bottles. We drink 500 ml bottles of water because a pint's about how much water a person wants to drink at a time. We adopted 2 l bottles because half a gallon is a comfortable amount to keep in stock at a given time, and you get a little bonus over 2 qt.
Ultimately, I think the US should metricate across the board, but with the understanding that people will mostly use metricated equivalents of customary measures. Children would learn the customary measures when younger, then gradually shift over to SI units for scientific and technical purposes.
Examples:
1 cup = 250 ml
1 pint = 500 ml
1 liter (may be informally called a "quart" but unlikely) = 2 pt
1 gallon = 4 l
1 pound = 500 g
1 kilogram = 2 (new)lbs
1 ton = 1000 kg (no more distinction between short and metric tons)
1 foot = 333 mm
1 meter = ~3 ft, 1000 mm
1 mile = 1500 m
Quote from: kphoger on June 26, 2012, 11:12:26 AMPeople in American geography class would still be taught that Kansas' township boundaries are expressed in terms of square miles, but properties within those boundaries would still be valued by the hectare; owning a 259-hectare farm instead of a one-section farm doesn't affect your farming practice in the slightest, and you would still talk about the northwest forty with your family and friends.
But generating property descriptions (which is a necessary part of subdividing or selling part of the land) would involve a conversion step, which could be costly. (This is one reason state DOTs which abandoned their metrication initiatives didn't immediately convert back to customary units for ROW plans--existing metric lot descriptions would have had to be changed, at additional cost.)
Worrying about food/cooking is a bit moot since almost all packaging displays both measurements. Most measurement devices in the kitchen use both, and have graduated markings as well.
I worked in the dairy department of a grocery store roughly twenty years ago, and people from all walks of life were not sure how many ounces were in a cup nor pints to a gallon. I was taught it years ago, but liquid measurement is kind of forgettably odd, unless you use it frequently enough (I do forget how many teaspoons or tablespoons are in an ounce).
I think we'd all get to our destinations eventually, but there would be a year or so of growing pains, and an even longer span of fixing/replacing signage. I think we'd probably wind up with some sort of "crutch" mentality in which people wouldn't want the old units to ever leave. Or maybe folks would just have to...pay attention.
Quote from: J N Winkler on June 26, 2012, 11:48:31 AM
Quote from: kphoger on June 26, 2012, 11:12:26 AMPeople in American geography class would still be taught that Kansas' township boundaries are expressed in terms of square miles, but properties within those boundaries would still be valued by the hectare; owning a 259-hectare farm instead of a one-section farm doesn't affect your farming practice in the slightest, and you would still talk about the northwest forty with your family and friends.
But generating property descriptions (which is a necessary part of subdividing or selling part of the land) would involve a conversion step, which could be costly. (This is one reason state DOTs which abandoned their metrication initiatives didn't immediately convert back to customary units for ROW plans--existing metric lot descriptions would have had to be changed, at additional cost.)
NASA ran into similar issues with the now-defunct Constellation program. The Space Shuttle was designed entirely with customary units. NASA now, naturally, uses metric for most designs. Since Constellation was a shuttle-derived program however, they made the decision to stick with customary units and received some bad press because of it.
Quote from: jwolfer on June 26, 2012, 10:04:15 AM
Here is an interesting customary/metric difference... Illegal drugs. Cocaine is kilos, no one one ever talks about cocaine in pounds. However marijuana is usually talked about in Ounces/pounds. ( I saw this on COPS)
http://www.theonion.com/articles/metric-system-thriving-in-nations-inner-cities,458/ :biggrin:
Couldn't resist...
Quote from: kphoger on June 26, 2012, 10:50:31 AM
Quote from: english si link=topic=6976.msg156669#msg156669 How many fluid ounces are in a quarter cup? Who the heck knows?/quote]Do you ever need that though? I can't see why you would need to.
Oh, yes, I certainly do need to know that kind of thing in my daily life. We find a recipe that calls for–I don't know, let's say 3.5 cups of beef stock. Then we go to the store, and find 32-ounce cartons of beef stock. Is that carton enough? Should we buy a carton plus a can? Who the heck knows!
Compare this to metric: the recipe says 800 mL, the store carries one-liter cartons, we're good to go.
Or you could just eyeball it like the rest of us.
Quote from: deanej on June 26, 2012, 03:10:46 PM
Quote from: kphoger on June 26, 2012, 10:50:31 AM
Quote from: english si link=topic=6976.msg156669#msg156669 How many fluid ounces are in a quarter cup? Who the heck knows?/quote]Do you ever need that though? I can't see why you would need to.
Oh, yes, I certainly do need to know that kind of thing in my daily life. We find a recipe that calls for–I don't know, let's say 3.5 cups of beef stock. Then we go to the store, and find 32-ounce cartons of beef stock. Is that carton enough? Should we buy a carton plus a can? Who the heck knows!
Compare this to metric: the recipe says 800 mL, the store carries one-liter cartons, we're good to go.
Or you could just eyeball it like the rest of us.
That works great with cooking, but not so great with baking.
Did you know that there are sixteen ozzes in a lib? :poke:
Quote from: hm insulators on June 26, 2012, 06:41:04 PM
Did you know that there are sixteen ozzes in a lib? :poke:
I thought that there were 12 d in a s and 20 s in a £ (or something like that), at least at one time.
But I do hate it when I see people measuring the lengths of things in minutes and seconds.
Mike
Quote from: mgk920
I thought that there were 12 d in a s and 20 s in a £ (or something like that), at least at one time.
But I do hate it when I see people measuring the lengths of things in minutes and seconds.
Mike
You mean as in relaying distance by car in drive time? I'm guilty of that. I know instinctively how long of a drive various places are but have to think about the distance in length units, D=RT and all.
As for British money, I have enough problems with their unnatural 20p coins (not 25? really?), I can't imagine how confused I'd be if they still were using £sd currency.
Quote from: formulanone on June 26, 2012, 12:07:06 PM
Worrying about food/cooking is a bit moot since almost all packaging displays both measurements. Most measurement devices in the kitchen use both, and have graduated markings as well.
But recipes do not. So, yeah, the carton on the shelf is measured in both customary units and metric units, but neither one is cups, which is what the recipe would call for. No big deal, you just convert cups to fluid ounces. Except nobody knows how many fluid ounces are in 3.5 cups (without doing some serious brain exercises.....except for J N Winkler). However, if the recipe were stated in, say, mL or dL, and the carton were labelled in L, then it would be no problem to do the conversion without brain exercises. Multiples of 10, not random skips between 2, 4, and 8.
Quote from: realjd on June 26, 2012, 04:00:57 PM
Quote from: deanej on June 26, 2012, 03:10:46 PM
Quote from: kphoger on June 26, 2012, 10:50:31 AM
Quote from: english si link=topic=6976.msg156669#msg156669 How many fluid ounces are in a quarter cup? Who the heck knows?/quote]Do you ever need that though? I can't see why you would need to.
Oh, yes, I certainly do need to know that kind of thing in my daily life. We find a recipe that calls forI don't know, let's say 3.5 cups of beef stock. Then we go to the store, and find 32-ounce cartons of beef stock. Is that carton enough? Should we buy a carton plus a can? Who the heck knows!
Compare this to metric: the recipe says 800 mL, the store carries one-liter cartons, we're good to go.
Or you could just eyeball it like the rest of us.
That works great with cooking, but not so great with baking.
Not to mention that, even in stovetop cooking, having just slightly too little of something can turn out disastrous, especially when that something is a liquid. For example, you ever put too little water in the pan of rice? I eyeball a lot of things in the kitchen, but I always make sure to have plenty on hand just in case I'm off.
Quote from: kphoger
Not to mention that, even in stovetop cooking, having just slightly too little of something can turn out disastrous, especially when that something is a liquid. For example, you ever put too little water in the pan of rice? I eyeball a lot of things in the kitchen, but I always make sure to have plenty on hand just in case I'm off.
Rice is a special case. I can't think of much else, even stovetop cooking, where the quantities must be exact, even for liquids. It usually has to be close, but not 100% precise.
As for conversions, I tend to have no problem with fluid measurements. 8 ounces is a cup, 16 ounces is a pint (easily remembered for a beer snob like me), and 32 ounces is a quart. For more difficult measurements, Google's built in unit conversion functionality is extremely useful (go search for "1.5 barrels in decaliters" for instance). My problem is typically that dry ingredients like flour are sold by weight but usually measured by volume for cooking. This would be a problem even with metric.
The problem with the 'dry' ingredients in baking, especially flour, is that when totally dry, they can still change their volume by over 10% depending on how they are handled - that is why they are best weighed. Baking is an exact science.
In an article that I read several years ago it said that one of the very first things that European bakers learn when just starting out is the ratio of flour to water in making bread - it is two parts flour to one part water by mass. Metric measures makes that a snap due to 1 mL of water being one gram in mass. Thus, if you have an unknown amount of flour on hand and you want to use it all up, you simply weigh the flour and then add correct amount of water. If there is, let's say, 2.46 kg of flour on hand, you then need to add 1.23 liters of water and you're on your way.
:cool:
Now, OTOH, try scaling a baking recipe up 130% using USCustomary measures.
:-o
Mike
Quote from: mgk920 on June 27, 2012, 01:59:10 AM
Now, OTOH, try scaling a baking recipe up 130% using USCustomary measures.
Huh? I'd much rather multiply 3/8 cup by 1.3 than 88 mL. (And why you'd add on 3/10 rather than 1/4 or 1/3, I have no idea, unless Metric has made you unable to deal with fractions other than tenths.)
Quote from: kphoger on June 26, 2012, 11:12:26 AM
Quote from: jwolfer on June 26, 2012, 11:01:19 AM
Quote from: bulkyorled on June 26, 2012, 10:05:07 AM
Besides its not as if you cant change to metric, make it official and not still use US units for things such as whats been mentioned. You hear Canada, UK, Aus, etc all still say Miles or whatever even if they're not talking to an American or anything.
Expressions such as "a million miles away" are still used ... no one says "a million kilometers away". Although i found a website advocating that we should change expressions. I am pro metric conversion but the whole erase from the language is a bit much
Of course. Conventional units wouldn't, and shouldn't, disappear from the world completely. Football still has yard lines, even if the official length of football field might be expressed in meters. Milk can still be sold in pints if you wish, but volume on the carton and in cookbooks would be expressed in mL. People in American geography class would still be taught that Kansas' township boundaries are expressed in terms of square miles, but properties within those boundaries would still be valued by the hectare; owning a 259-hectare farm instead of a one-section farm doesn't affect your farming practice in the slightest, and you would still talk about the northwest forty with your family and friends.
After all, we still call giving our opinion "putting in our two bits", even though decimal currency was adopted in 1794.
Totally agree. And obviously I meant more than just "a million miles away" haha
Quote from: realjd on June 26, 2012, 09:09:05 PM
As for British money, I have enough problems with their unnatural 20p coins (not 25? really?), I can't imagine how confused I'd be if they still were using £sd currency.
But you are ok with $20 bills?
Always wondered why they went with 25¢ for the coin but $20 for the bill. They tried a 20¢ coin at one point but it never took because the quarter was still circulating.
Standard casino chip denominations are 1, 5, 25, 100, 500. In a way this makes somewhat more sense because five chips generally equals the next higher chip (except for the $25s).
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 27, 2012, 06:33:01 AM
Quote from: realjd on June 26, 2012, 09:09:05 PM
As for British money, I have enough problems with their unnatural 20p coins (not 25? really?), I can't imagine how confused I'd be if they still were using £sd currency.
But you are ok with $20 bills?
Always wondered why they went with 25¢ for the coin but $20 for the bill. They tried a 20¢ coin at one point but it never took because the quarter was still circulating.
Standard casino chip denominations are 1, 5, 25, 100, 500. In a way this makes somewhat more sense because five chips generally equals the next higher chip (except for the $25s).
It wasn't a serious complaint. It just always takes a bit of mental adjusting paying for a 45p charge (for instance) with two 20p and a 5p coin instead of a quarter and two dimes. My brain isn't used to counting by 20 for change. FWIW, I regularly hear similar complaints from Brits about how our dimes are not only the same size as their 5p coins but also illogically the smallest coin we have.
Quote from: realjd on June 26, 2012, 09:09:05 PMAs for British money, I have enough problems with their unnatural 20p coins (not 25? really?)
We ditched the quarter equivalent on decimalisation. As 5p=1s=12d, 25p would be 5 shillings, which was a crown (and a crown is really a 50c equivalent - Can, Aus, US, etc set dollars at 10s and decimalised the shilling so that 1c was equal to 1.2d. Though not having fixed exchange rates messed about with the exchange rates over time) to fit in better with Europe (Germany had 20pfennig coins, France 20centimes, etc) - and when they had the chance to change, they stuck with it - there's a €0.20 coin, but no €0.25 coin.
We did have the quarter equivalent too - the half-crown (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_crown_(British_coin)), worth 2/6 or 30d.
But we also had the 20p equivalent, the Double Florin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_florin_(British_coin)) (a Florin was two-bob, and worth 10p on decimalisation until they changed the coin size in the 90s), but it didn't catch on as there was still the half-crown, so it was only issued for three years.
QuoteI can't imagine how confused I'd be if they still were using £sd currency.
You, probably even now. Brits - at least not now.
The 'confusing'*. period would have extended another 15 years, til the mid-80s (when we abolished the decimal half-penny - so we could basically change it into a
de facto £s system with thruppenny bits being quarter-shillings and sixpences being half-shillings) and we'd almost ignore it now, other than, say petrol prices, where it would be 12ths of 1s rather than 10ths of 1d. Given that now our 2p coin is worth less than the 1/2p coin when we abolished it, we'd have abolished it by now, rather than wasted effort on it, if we had the unit of shilling 2.5 times the size to make a nice cut off point. Then again, Canada has finally gotten rid of it's penny (which is roughly equivalent to our decimal half-penny) and there are several Eurozone countries that don't mint smaller than 5c, plus places like France that (a habit dating back to the smaller Franc, which were dime/florin equivalents, so 1 centime was very small) almost always round change to the nearest 5c.
£sd worked when, for centuries, the (few) rich people didn't need to care about d, the poor people didn't usually have to care about £ and only the clerical class needed to use all three and add them up regularly. Then inflation and increased riches meant that more people were using £sd regularly until about 2000, when we would have had no use for anything less than a shilling.
Of course it would be confusing for foreigners to have a base 20 system of currency with the possibility of 1/12s that are rounded to the nearest whole.
*in air quotes as everyone got along with it and many opposed the new system as 'too confusing'. It no doubt was probably confusing to have £sd. But back then we taught our children arithmetic like crazy, so it was like second nature to them from an early age. Most people over 60 is a whizz at arithmetic (dementia not withstanding), those who went to school in the 60s, since the push for metric and who didn't have to deal with a £/s/d economy as by 1971 they were still pre-teen and had little use for pounds (inflation - a pound then was worth rather a lot - perhaps as much as £20 today), the standards have been slipping away. Some of that is, of course, down to the calculator and later the computer. It is, today, a fairly meaningless skill, but if we had kept the once Western Europe-wide £sd currency, we'd have be able to work with it as we'd have kept the skills for it.
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 27, 2012, 06:33:01 AM
Quote from: realjd on June 26, 2012, 09:09:05 PM
As for British money, I have enough problems with their unnatural 20p coins (not 25? really?), I can't imagine how confused I'd be if they still were using £sd currency.
But you are ok with $20 bills?
Always wondered why they went with 25¢ for the coin but $20 for the bill. They tried a 20¢ coin at one point but it never took because the quarter was still circulating.
The 25¢ coin is more the anomaly in this case. It's a holdover from the old Spanish dollar that was broken into pieces of eight. While the rest of the currency was decimalized into cents and dimes, the Spanish dollar's status as a global currency (legal tender in the US until 1857) had enough of an influence to set the denomination at 1/4 of a US dollar, just as "two bits" were 1/4 of a Spanish dollar.
A 1/5 denomination, such as the Euro 20 cent coin, makes more sense in a decimalized system as it is divisible by 10. Quarters are useful, but they are certainly a throwback to a pre-decimalized era.
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 27, 2012, 06:33:01 AM
Quote from: realjd on June 26, 2012, 09:09:05 PM
As for British money, I have enough problems with their unnatural 20p coins (not 25? really?), I can't imagine how confused I'd be if they still were using £sd currency.
But you are ok with $20 bills?
Always wondered why they went with 25¢ for the coin but $20 for the bill. They tried a 20¢ coin at one point but it never took because the quarter was still circulating.
Standard casino chip denominations are 1, 5, 25, 100, 500. In a way this makes somewhat more sense because five chips generally equals the next higher chip (except for the $25s).
In pre-Euro Europe (at least the eight or nine countries I was in in the 80s), demoninations of 20 were actually more common than 25, for some reason.
Quote from: english si on June 27, 2012, 08:07:23 AM
Quote from: realjd on June 26, 2012, 09:09:05 PMAs for British money, I have enough problems with their unnatural 20p coins (not 25? really?)
We ditched the quarter equivalent on decimalisation. As 5p=1s=12d, 25p would be 5 shillings, which was a crown (and a crown is really a 50c equivalent - Can, Aus, US, etc set dollars at 10s and decimalised the shilling so that 1c was equal to 1.2d. Though not having fixed exchange rates messed about with the exchange rates over time) to fit in better with Europe (Germany had 20pfennig coins, France 20centimes, etc) - and when they had the chance to change, they stuck with it - there's a 0.20 coin, but no 0.25 coin.
We did have the quarter equivalent too - the half-crown (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_crown_(British_coin)), worth 2/6 or 30d.
But we also had the 20p equivalent, the Double Florin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_florin_(British_coin)) (a Florin was two-bob, and worth 10p on decimalisation until they changed the coin size in the 90s), but it didn't catch on as there was still the half-crown, so it was only issued for three years.QuoteI can't imagine how confused I'd be if they still were using £sd currency.
You, probably even now. Brits - at least not now.
The 'confusing'*. period would have extended another 15 years, til the mid-80s (when we abolished the decimal half-penny - so we could basically change it into a de facto £s system with thruppenny bits being quarter-shillings and sixpences being half-shillings) and we'd almost ignore it now, other than, say petrol prices, where it would be 12ths of 1s rather than 10ths of 1d. Given that now our 2p coin is worth less than the 1/2p coin when we abolished it, we'd have abolished it by now, rather than wasted effort on it, if we had the unit of shilling 2.5 times the size to make a nice cut off point. Then again, Canada has finally gotten rid of it's penny (which is roughly equivalent to our decimal half-penny) and there are several Eurozone countries that don't mint smaller than 5c, plus places like France that (a habit dating back to the smaller Franc, which were dime/florin equivalents, so 1 centime was very small) almost always round change to the nearest 5c.
£sd worked when, for centuries, the (few) rich people didn't need to care about d, the poor people didn't usually have to care about £ and only the clerical class needed to use all three and add them up regularly. Then inflation and increased riches meant that more people were using £sd regularly until about 2000, when we would have had no use for anything less than a shilling.
Of course it would be confusing for foreigners to have a base 20 system of currency with the possibility of 1/12s that are rounded to the nearest whole.
*in air quotes as everyone got along with it and many opposed the new system as 'too confusing'. It no doubt was probably confusing to have £sd. But back then we taught our children arithmetic like crazy, so it was like second nature to them from an early age. Most people over 60 is a whizz at arithmetic (dementia not withstanding), those who went to school in the 60s, since the push for metric and who didn't have to deal with a £/s/d economy as by 1971 they were still pre-teen and had little use for pounds (inflation - a pound then was worth rather a lot - perhaps as much as £20 today), the standards have been slipping away. Some of that is, of course, down to the calculator and later the computer. It is, today, a fairly meaningless skill, but if we had kept the once Western Europe-wide £sd currency, we'd have be able to work with it as we'd have kept the skills for it.
Whoa.
I'll have to reread all that once the caffeine's kicked in. :-)
Thanks english si for explaining why there seemed to be (essentially) multiple currencies circulating in Great Britain before the 1970s. I never understood why "classes of currency" was ever needed, but that does clear things up...well, somewhat. :clap:
Quote from: english si on June 27, 2012, 08:07:23 AM
a Florin was two-bob
Quotethruppenny
no, not confusing at all.
which one's the bob again? and how does that compare to the quid?
it's not the formal system that's confusing... it's all the nicknames!
^^We do that too, of course. And to be fair, I don't know of another country that shows the denominations of its coins as "One Dime" or "Quarter Dollar" rather than "10 Cents" or "25 Cents." An English-speaking person with a brain ought to be able to figure out what a quarter dollar is, but even an English-speaking person from outside North America might not know what a dime is.
in order to figure out what a "dime" is, it may help to not be an English speaker!
that said, I'd put "dime" in the same classification of official names as "shilling". "quid" is more like "buck", as it is in fairly common use. I'd never heard of "two-bob" before; I'd always thought "bob" was solely used as an uncle in the colloquial!
I think in general, in the US we have a lot fewer commonly agreed-upon colloquial terms for money. most people know what a "grand" is, but talking about "Benjamins" puts you squarely in the "I pay too much attention to MTV and advertisements" demographic, and anyone who speaks of "quatloons" is a loon.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on June 27, 2012, 10:35:44 AMwhich one's the bob again? and how does that compare to the quid?
Bob was a shilling, quid is a pound.
Thruppenny bit and the decimal-tuppence is fairly obvious - three-penny and two-pence mushed together.
Quoteit's not the formal system that's confusing... it's all the nicknames!
Yea, like the States is immune from that - dime, nickel, penny, quarter, buck, sawbuck...
IIRC, florin (2s/10p) was written on the coin, just like the dime. No helpful number on them.
You are quite right though, it was both confusing for tourists, and for those of us looking back. I certainly struggled to get used to dimes when visiting the states, especially as smaller than a nickel, the same colour, but worth more. There's other niggles - all coins circular (our 20p and 50p are heptagonal), no common half-dollar coins, etc.
Quote from: english si on June 27, 2012, 11:27:11 AM
Thruppenny bit and the decimal-tuppence is fairly obvious - three-penny and two-pence mushed together.
it must be the accent - I absolutely did not catch that "three" rhymes with "two"! I had been visualizing "thru-penny", which made me imagine a very, very cheap fare on a particular New York toll road.
QuoteYou are quite right though, it was both confusing for tourists, and for those of us looking back. I certainly struggled to get used to dimes when visiting the states, especially as smaller than a nickel, the same colour, but worth more. There's other niggles - all coins circular (our 20p and 50p are heptagonal), no common half-dollar coins, etc.
the other thing is - in the US, you can pretty much get away without needing to look at coins. Whenever I get any, I simply file them away, and after several years I am shocked to find I have over six hundred dollars awaiting redemption.
I think I have about eighty or ninety pesos (about $6) of Mexican coins in my car, and another similar amount on my nightstand.
in Europe, I was starting to do the same thing before noting that a two-euro (helpfully marked!) coin actually had substantial value - so on the last several days of the trip I made it a point to start spending them!
I've never spent British money, but I imagine that the paper is quite intuitive, as it is with all the countries I've been in. I cannot offhand think of a system where the paper currency isn't easy to file and sort and come up with the right quantity as needed.
And nowadays, with the inflation and the passage of time, quarters are the smallest USA coins left with any legitimate use in commerce anymore. The smaller coins (1¢, 5¢ and 10¢) are now only really useful for parsing state and local sales taxes.
Since 1933 (when the USA was taken off of the gold standard) we have had about an 80:1 inflation in real terms (the Feds claim less), adding nearly two full 'zeroes' to the Dollar - the 1¢ coin in the 1910s and 1920s had just slightly less real buying power than the $1 note does today. Think on the lines of a quarter then being worth about $20 in today's money. Most everyday commerce into the mid-20th century was done using coins ONLY (1¢ through 50¢ - and half-dollars were more common in circulation than quarters) and to have even one $1 banknote in the wallet was to be carrying 'real' money around.
:-o
Mike
assuming that the price of gold is constant and the dollar is what is changing, the 80:1 is roughly correct. ($20.67/oz to $1580/oz or whatever it is at any given moment.)
that said, other items have not gone up by a multiple of 80.
a lot of this is due to costs diminishing because of technological innovation (Model T: $600, versus about $15000 for a modern compact car: 1/3 the gold price for a significantly more feature-filled vehicle.)
are there any items which have gotten cheaper, but not because their actual costs have gone down?
as a related exercise: gold was in the low $300s in 2004. in eight years, have we really had a 5:1 inflation? intuitively, I feel like it's more like 2:1, based on the products I buy regularly. beer's about twice as much... :-D
Quote from: agentsteel53 on June 27, 2012, 11:56:09 AM
Quote from: english si on June 27, 2012, 11:27:11 AM
Thruppenny bit and the decimal-tuppence is fairly obvious - three-penny and two-pence mushed together.
it must be the accent - I absolutely did not catch that "three" rhymes with "two"! I had been visualizing "thru-penny", which made me imagine a very, very cheap fare on a particular New York toll road.
QuoteYou are quite right though, it was both confusing for tourists, and for those of us looking back. I certainly struggled to get used to dimes when visiting the states, especially as smaller than a nickel, the same colour, but worth more. There's other niggles - all coins circular (our 20p and 50p are heptagonal), no common half-dollar coins, etc.
the other thing is - in the US, you can pretty much get away without needing to look at coins. Whenever I get any, I simply file them away, and after several years I am shocked to find I have over six hundred dollars awaiting redemption.
I think I have about eighty or ninety pesos (about $6) of Mexican coins in my car, and another similar amount on my nightstand.
in Europe, I was starting to do the same thing before noting that a two-euro (helpfully marked!) coin actually had substantial value - so on the last several days of the trip I made it a point to start spending them!
I've never spent British money, but I imagine that the paper is quite intuitive, as it is with all the countries I've been in. I cannot offhand think of a system where the paper currency isn't easy to file and sort and come up with the right quantity as needed.
British paper money is quite easy. The green one buys me a beer plus a handful of coins. A brown one buys me two beers plus a bigger handful of coins. Purple ones are the best though because they can often be turned into 5 whole beers!
Other than my difficulty with 20p vs. 25p., and the fact that their 5p coins could pass as an American dime, the coins aren't too difficult to get used to. It's not as easy (for an American) as Canada is where the coins are practically interchangeable with ours, but it's not bad. My big problem is the same one I have in every other country without single bills - I never remember to pull out coins for purchases over £1. I'll burn through £100 of bills fairly quickly, ending up with £25 worth of £1 and £2 coins.
I will say that I have a much easier time with coins in England than I do in places like The Bahamas where their currency is fixed 1:1 with USD, is used interchangeably, is goofy shaped, and includes oddities like 15¢ square coins. There I often end up just dumping a handful of coins on the counter and let the shopkeeper sort it out.
I know "buck" is fairly common in Canada as well as the US as slang for dollars. Does that extend to other dollar currency areas like Australia?
Quote from: mgk920 on June 27, 2012, 12:01:09 PM
And nowadays, with the inflation and the passage of time, quarters are the smallest USA coins left with any legitimate use in commerce anymore. The smaller coins (1¢, 5¢ and 10¢) are now only really useful for parsing state and local sales taxes.
Due to our at-the-register sales tax mechanisms, they're necessary for change. I wouldn't mind dropping the penny though. I tend to let them accumulate in my desk and use them as vending machine money.
I'm one of the few Americans I know who prefers dollar coins, although I typically only ever get them if I pay cash in places like automatic parking garage ticket validators, or transit ticket vending machines.
if I recall correctly, the Euro also has a 20 cent instead of a 25.
I had no problem (once I decided to start using the euro coins!) because I use US $20 bills a lot more than US quarters.
about the only place I use quarters is in parking meters, and at that point I'm paying closest attention to the minutes on the display as they go up, so it may as well be 20 cent pieces, or even tokens, which I am inserting.
Quote from: realjd on June 27, 2012, 12:23:21 PM
....
I'm one of the few Americans I know who prefers dollar coins, although I typically only ever get them if I pay cash in places like automatic parking garage ticket validators, or transit ticket vending machines.
My father, before he got to the point (Parkinson's) where he couldn't get around on his own, was waging a one-man campaign to get them into circulation. He'd buy a bunch at a bank and start spending them....
Well, let's see....
1912 - good beer in a tavern/bar/beer hall - 5¢
2012 - $5+
1912 - car - $500 or so (these were 'rich mans' toys' until the mid-late 1920s)
2012 - (ranges in five figures based on quality and features)
1912 - daily newspaper - 1-2¢
2012 - $1-2
1912 - one night in a decent room in a downtown hotel - $2
2012 - $100-150
1912 - a really nice room - $3
2012 - $200-300
1912 - decent restaurant dinner meal for the family of four - 40-50¢
2012 - $30-40
1912 - first class letter - 3¢
2012 - 45¢ (Mail is a BARGAIN today! In real inflation terms, a first class letter stamp should now be about $2.50.)
Etc.
And yes, I too would much rather be using higher value coins instead of banknotes for everyday commerce things like they do in Canada, Japan, Australia, Europe, etc.
Mike
Quote from: mgk920 on June 27, 2012, 12:32:49 PM
1912 - one night in a decent room in a downtown hotel - $2
2012 - $100-150
thanks. this is a good comparison here because the price of that shouldn't much come down... sure, you get more features (color TV in every room!), but objectively speaking you are paying for something very similar.
I have a cast-iron sign which claims 25c for a night's stay rurally, with 10c extra for a bath. this is from the late 19th century, and it jives well with paying about $30-40 for a clean but featureless room out in the sticks.
Quote1912 - first class letter - 3¢
2012 - 45¢ (Mail is a BARGAIN today! In real inflation terms, a first class letter stamp should now be about $2.50.)
I had thought about this, but decided it would be too tangential to the discussion (oh hey, metric system what now?) to introduce services priced by government fiat. it might be more interesting to compare Pony Express to FedEx Overnight, revealing that it's much,
much cheaper and quicker today thanks to our transportation infrastructure.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on June 27, 2012, 11:56:09 AM
Quote from: english si on June 27, 2012, 11:27:11 AM
Thruppenny bit and the decimal-tuppence is fairly obvious - three-penny and two-pence mushed together.
it must be the accent - I absolutely did not catch that "three" rhymes with "two"! I had been visualizing "thru-penny", which made me imagine a very, very cheap fare on a particular New York toll road.
I should be more clear:
Thruppenny bit = 3d coin (three-penny)
Tuppence = 2p (two-pence)
It doesn't quite sound right, even with my accent, but say the phrase fast and you'll pick it up. Thruppenny has nothing to do with two.
Quotethe other thing is - in the US, you can pretty much get away without needing to look at coins. Whenever I get any, I simply file them away, and after several years I am shocked to find I have over six hundred dollars awaiting redemption.
lol, sounds about right! Though 50p, £1 and £2 coins have value in the UK - £2 is roughly $3 (though last time I was in the States, it was $4) - we amass quite a lot of change, or dump it in charity buckets or whatever. We don't get as much, due to not having sales tax make prices odd.
QuoteI've never spent British money, but I imagine that the paper is quite intuitive, as it is with all the countries I've been in. I cannot offhand think of a system where the paper currency isn't easy to file and sort and come up with the right quantity as needed.
You've spent most of your life using one - the US dollars before they did something to help - at least more recently (post-2003) there's some tinting to help you work out what note is which easier. They are however (I thought they had added some slight variations in size) the same size.
Quote from: realjd on June 27, 2012, 12:20:23 PMBritish paper money is quite easy. The green one buys me a beer plus a handful of coins. A brown one buys me two beers plus a bigger handful of coins. Purple ones are the best though because they can often be turned into 5 whole beers!
Green? Fivers are blue.
Even in London, you should get a handful of coins buying 5 beers with £20 (in the north you'd certainly get 6), unless you have gone somewhere that has ripped you off, or you've bought expensive beer.
Rarer seen are the red £50 notes. Note this (and there's increasing size - £50 notes always look massive) large contrast in the bold (not some tinting) colours - blue, brown, purple, red. You cannot easily get muddled between the different notes, unlike even the tinted US bills.
QuoteOther than my difficulty with 20p vs. 25p., and the fact that their 5p coins could pass as an American dime, the coins aren't too difficult to get used to. It's not as easy (for an American) as Canada is where the coins are practically interchangeable with ours, but it's not bad. My big problem is the same one I have in every other country without single bills - I never remember to pull out coins for purchases over £1. I'll burn through £100 of bills fairly quickly, ending up with £25 worth of £1 and £2 coins.
We did shrink the 5p (and 10p) when we finally (mid-nineties) decided to fully remove shilling and florin coins from circulation, but the 5p noticeably different to the dime, even by simple touch. They are worth about the same, so it's not a big mess up and they are both worth next-to-nothing.
And the £1 and £2 (same for €1 and €2) coins are (relatively) heavy - I find it hard to believe that you can tolerate having £25 worth before remembering that they are worth something! I'd have wanted to get rid of them after a few had ended up in my wallet.
Single bills for the pound seem silly to me - we ditched the ten-bob note on decimalisation, the £1 note in the 80s, and introduced the £2 coin in the early 00s. I have the opposite problem of wanting to pay $3 amounts in coins before I remember that the biggest coin in my wallet is 25c and dollars are bills and while I may want to get rid of coins, I'm not quite able to do so.
Quote from: mgk920 on June 27, 2012, 12:32:49 PM
....And yes, I too would much rather be using higher value coins instead of banknotes for everyday commerce things like they do in Canada, Japan, Australia, Europe, etc.
Mike
My only problem with that is the weight in your pockets increases faster in Canada or Britain than it does here.
Quote from: english si on June 27, 2012, 01:21:47 PM
It doesn't quite sound right, even with my accent, but say the phrase fast and you'll pick it up. Thruppenny has nothing to do with two.
the spelling made it looked liked "thru" rhymed with "tu".
QuoteWe don't get as much, due to not having sales tax make prices odd.
indeed, our sales taxes make us get a
lot of change on small purchases. a $1.99 bottle of water turns into $2.17, yielding nearly a dollar change.
I'm assuming it is a law that prices displayed must include VAT? here we have no such law, and as a seller I definitely advertise the pre-tax prices!
QuoteYou've spent most of your life using one - the US dollars before they did something to help - at least more recently (post-2003) there's some tinting to help you work out what note is which easier. They are however (I thought they had added some slight variations in size) the same size.
having grown up with that system, I could identify a bill just by general appearance - you could blank out all text, and the portrait, and I could probably sort and count currency just as fast as if all the features were there.
QuoteAnd the £1 and £2 (same for €1 and €2) coins are (relatively) heavy - I find it hard to believe that you can tolerate having £25 worth before remembering that they are worth something! I'd have wanted to get rid of them after a few had ended up in my wallet.
and that's why my coins end up in the car center console, or on the nightstand, with such frequency!
(mods: we really need to split this thread ;) )
Quote from: Michael in Philly on June 27, 2012, 01:31:30 PM
Quote from: mgk920 on June 27, 2012, 12:32:49 PM
....And yes, I too would much rather be using higher value coins instead of banknotes for everyday commerce things like they do in Canada, Japan, Australia, Europe, etc.
Mike
My only problem with that is the weight in your pockets increases faster in Canada or Britain than it does here.
Quite the opposite. The experience in Canada when they introduced their C$2 coin ('twonie') and dropped the C$2 banknote on the same day in 1996 was that people started spending coins up to the needed amount in 'small time' commerce, such that demand on the RCM for new C$1 ('loonies') and C$0.25 coins dropped to zero - the recirculation effect was that strong. They did not start making quarters and loonies for circulation again until about 1999 (their 1999-2000 century series of monthly commemorative quarters, what the USA's state quarters program was based on).
Mike
Quote from: english si on June 27, 2012, 01:21:47 PM
You've spent most of your life using one - the US dollars before they did something to help - at least more recently (post-2003) there's some tinting to help you work out what note is which easier. They are however (I thought they had added some slight variations in size) the same size.
Nope, the sizes are all still the same. While our notes are all the same color, the denomination is clearly printed on all four corners of the bill on both sides. It's easy enough (at least for someone used to it) to find the correct bill by flipping through one corner of the stack in your wallet since you'll see the number regardless of the bill's orientation. The other foreign money I have in my desk (English and Canadian) isn't as consistent or thorough with number placement.
Quote
Green? Fivers are blue.
Even in London, you should get a handful of coins buying 5 beers with £20 (in the north you'd certainly get 6), unless you have gone somewhere that has ripped you off, or you've bought expensive beer.
The one I have here looks green to me, although I suppose much of it is actually teal. And looking at them, the £10 bill that I called brown is mostly orange.
The most I paid for a pint was £5 at an upscale pub near my hotel. I only had one there then we went someplace else. Most of the time I was paying around £3.50 - £4, give or take. My usual hotels are in the Marylebone area though so prices are higher in general. I suppose they figure the Aston Martin driving young bankers around there can afford the extra few quid over a night's drinking.
Quote
We did shrink the 5p (and 10p) when we finally (mid-nineties) decided to fully remove shilling and florin coins from circulation, but the 5p noticeably different to the dime, even by simple touch. They are worth about the same, so it's not a big mess up and they are both worth next-to-nothing.
They're noticeably different when you have them next to each other, but they're similar size and color otherwise. When I'm counting change with a pocket full of British money, I have to make a conscious effort to remember that it's worth 5p and not 10p.
Quote
And the £1 and £2 (same for €1 and €2) coins are (relatively) heavy - I find it hard to believe that you can tolerate having £25 worth before remembering that they are worth something! I'd have wanted to get rid of them after a few had ended up in my wallet.
I suppose I was exaggerating a bit with £25, but my point still stands. And when my pocket gets heavy with coins, in the US I'll get rid of them by using them to pay the cents part of a bill. So if a bill came to $7.62, I'd pay $10.62 and get $3 in bills back. In England (and Canada, etc.) I tend to do the same, so a bill that would come to £3.25 or something I'd pay with a £5 bill and 25p in coins, not even remembering that I had more than enough heavy gold coins to pay the whole amount.
Quote
Single bills for the pound seem silly to me - we ditched the ten-bob note on decimalisation, the £1 note in the 80s, and introduced the £2 coin in the early 00s. I have the opposite problem of wanting to pay $3 amounts in coins before I remember that the biggest coin in my wallet is 25c and dollars are bills and while I may want to get rid of coins, I'm not quite able to do so.
I'm always fascinated by the small cultural differences like this, especially in cultures as similar as ours are. Money in particular is one of those things that each country does slightly differently, and it's used frequently enough when traveling that it's a good reminder that you're in a foreign land.
Quote from: Michael in Philly on June 27, 2012, 01:31:30 PM
Quote from: mgk920 on June 27, 2012, 12:32:49 PM
....And yes, I too would much rather be using higher value coins instead of banknotes for everyday commerce things like they do in Canada, Japan, Australia, Europe, etc.
Mike
My only problem with that is the weight in your pockets increases faster in Canada or Britain than it does here.
I actually like that when I'm in other countries, or when I have a bunch of dollar coins. Instead of a heavy pocket meaning a couple of bucks, it means that you've got real money in there ;)
I've been reading this thread with interest and I have to agree with some of the points being made.
Firstly £5 notes are a turquoise color that is somewhere between green and blue. It's hard to describe the exact color.
£20 could get you a lot more than 6 beers at the right place and these are full pints rather than the 12oz you normally get in the US.
Sales tax in North America is one of my big annoyances. I remember on one of my first visits giving the clerk the exact amount in change displayed on the item only to be told I had to pay more. This is where our system of tax inclusive prices is better = what you see is what you pay.
^^I've always assumed the reason for not including the tax in the price printed on certain items (or advertised, or whatever) is that it'll vary from one state to another (even within states in some cases), so a national chain can advertise such-and-such as costing $19.95, or a book can have a cover price of whatever, that's valid nationally. I assume VAT within a given European country isn't variable?
Quote from: mgk920 on June 26, 2012, 08:20:29 PM
Quote from: hm insulators on June 26, 2012, 06:41:04 PM
Did you know that there are sixteen ozzes in a lib? :poke:
I thought that there were 12 d in a s and 20 s in a £ (or something like that), at least at one time.
But I do hate it when I see people measuring the lengths of things in minutes and seconds.
Mike
Oh, minutes and seconds are for measuring angles, not lengths...
Quote from: mgk920 on June 27, 2012, 01:59:10 AM
Baking is an exact science.
I think you overstate how exact baking is. I've baked a fair amount and never resorted to weighing the ingredients. There are other variables than density or exact amount of the dry ingredients that have a greater impact on the success of the project -- humidity, variability between ovens. These factors are generally harder to measure and are not provided in recipes.
Quote from: formulanone on June 27, 2012, 09:51:22 AM
Thanks english si for explaining why there seemed to be (essentially) multiple currencies circulating in Great Britain before the 1970s. I never understood why "classes of currency" was ever needed, but that does clear things up...well, somewhat. :clap:
Oh, but he left off Guineas! Up to the 19th century, guineas were the gold coin, shillings the silver coin, pennies the copper coin. Pennies were a fiat money, but the value of guineas relative to shillings fluctuated with the relative values of gold and silver. In 1815, they decided to make silver a fiat money as well, exchangable for gold, at 21 shillings per guinea. At the same time, they started making sovereigns the gold coin, worth 20 shillings (1 pound). Actual guineas went out of circulation fairly soon, but expensive things continued to be priced in multiples of 21 shillings rather than pounds -- suits, jewelry, doctor's fees, etc. Even today some luxury British goods are priced at multiples of 1.05 pounds.
Quote from: kkt on June 27, 2012, 04:50:28 PM
Quote from: mgk920 on June 26, 2012, 08:20:29 PM
Quote from: hm insulators on June 26, 2012, 06:41:04 PM
Did you know that there are sixteen ozzes in a lib? :poke:
I thought that there were 12 d in a s and 20 s in a £ (or something like that), at least at one time.
But I do hate it when I see people measuring the lengths of things in minutes and seconds.
Mike
Oh, minutes and seconds are for measuring angles, not lengths...
Minute = '
Second = "
:nod:
Mike
i think he means using tick marks to denote feet and inches like writing 5 feet 6 inches as 5'6"
ah okay. here I thought he was proposing metric time.
"the length of the baseball game was 2.0637 hours"
Quote from: agentsteel53 on June 27, 2012, 12:41:31 PM
Quote from: mgk920 on June 27, 2012, 12:32:49 PM
1912 - one night in a decent room in a downtown hotel - $2
2012 - $100-150
thanks. this is a good comparison here because the price of that shouldn't much come down... sure, you get more features (color TV in every room!), but objectively speaking you are paying for something very similar.
I have a cast-iron sign which claims 25c for a night's stay rurally, with 10c extra for a bath. this is from the late 19th century, and it jives well with paying about $30-40 for a clean but featureless room out in the sticks.
Quote1912 - first class letter - 3¢
2012 - 45¢ (Mail is a BARGAIN today! In real inflation terms, a first class letter stamp should now be about $2.50.)
I had thought about this, but decided it would be too tangential to the discussion (oh hey, metric system what now?) to introduce services priced by government fiat. it might be more interesting to compare Pony Express to FedEx Overnight, revealing that it's much, much cheaper and quicker today thanks to our transportation infrastructure.
Two hours of pushin' broom buys a eight-by-twelve four-bit room.....
Quote from: Truvelo on June 27, 2012, 03:46:24 PM
£20 could get you a lot more than 6 beers at the right place and these are full pints rather than the 12oz you normally get in the US.
The right place apparently isn't Central London! Except for a Weatherspoon pub (the one by Marble Arch maybe...), I don't recall paying less than £3.50 anywhere. And yes, real pints are excellent, although your beer is weaker to make up for it. And while standard American bottles are 12 oz, a pint at a bar is usually 16 ounces. It's also not unusual at some bars (usually sports bars) to offer tall draught beers sized at 24 ounces. You will find some English and Irish pubs here pour real pints also.
I wish we could easily get cask ales here.
Quote
Sales tax in North America is one of my big annoyances. I remember on one of my first visits giving the clerk the exact amount in change displayed on the item only to be told I had to pay more. This is where our system of tax inclusive prices is better = what you see is what you pay.
Agreed. I wish our sales tax was included on the sticker price and not calculated at the register. I noticed in England that you could tell the Americans at a store because we always wait for the total at the register before we start counting out money.
Quote from: silverback1065 on June 27, 2012, 08:10:23 PM
i think he means using tick marks to denote feet and inches like writing 5 feet 6 inches as 5'6"
Yea, 'five apostrophes and six quotes'.
:cool:
Mike
Quote from: realjd on June 27, 2012, 10:18:05 PM
Quote from: Truvelo on June 27, 2012, 03:46:24 PM
£20 could get you a lot more than 6 beers at the right place and these are full pints rather than the 12oz you normally get in the US.
The right place apparently isn't Central London! Except for a Weatherspoon pub (the one by Marble Arch maybe...), I don't recall paying less than £3.50 anywhere. And yes, real pints are excellent, although your beer is weaker to make up for it. And while standard American bottles are 12 oz, a pint at a bar is usually 16 ounces. It's also not unusual at some bars (usually sports bars) to offer tall draught beers sized at 24 ounces. You will find some English and Irish pubs here pour real pints also.
I wish we could easily get cask ales here.
There is a brauhaus here in Appleton where the first-generation German immigrant owners price and pour their beer in 500mL, 1L and even 2L ('boot') quantities.
:cheers:
Mike
Quote from: Michael in Philly on June 27, 2012, 01:31:30 PM
Quote from: mgk920 on June 27, 2012, 12:32:49 PM
....And yes, I too would much rather be using higher value coins instead of banknotes for everyday commerce things like they do in Canada, Japan, Australia, Europe, etc.
Mike
My only problem with that is the weight in your pockets increases faster in Canada or Britain than it does here.
I believe that is what is called a man's problem; women have handbags that take care of this issue quite nicely.
Quote from: deanej on June 28, 2012, 10:51:01 AM
Quote from: Michael in Philly on June 27, 2012, 01:31:30 PM
Quote from: mgk920 on June 27, 2012, 12:32:49 PM
....And yes, I too would much rather be using higher value coins instead of banknotes for everyday commerce things like they do in Canada, Japan, Australia, Europe, etc.
Mike
My only problem with that is the weight in your pockets increases faster in Canada or Britain than it does here.
I believe that is what is called a man's problem; women have handbags that take care of this issue quite nicely.
I confess that I have a backpack with about $3-5 in change, for the occasional parking meter or soda machine (I encounter some that don't take bills).
I suppose larger denominations of coinage would prevent that, but only a few machines accept the dollar coins. It's amazing how we can print more money, but terrible at minting new stuff, save collectibles and commemoratives.
A $5 coin would probably work, but we're so much further down the path of electronic transfers with every passing day, that it seems like a bit of a boondoggle at this point.
Quote from: formulanone on June 28, 2012, 11:16:28 AM
A $5 coin would probably work, but we're so much further down the path of electronic transfers with every passing day, that it seems like a bit of a boondoggle at this point.
that reminds me that before 1933, the US had gold coins up to $20 denomination in regular issue, and even a few $50 coins made during the California Gold Rush.
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pcgs.com%2Fimages%2Fmdcc%2F1851-%2450-Humbert-obverse.jpg&hash=0d51c50ad3c7710621f2135e01138eb7301d0b15)
I'm not sure what the circulating status of that $50 was. I have heard it worked more like an ingot, as an item of ensured weight and fineness, that just happened to have a denomination on it.
that said: given that $50 is two and a half ounces of gold, roughly, or about $3600 current dollars (!) - that's a coin I wouldn't casually toss into the center console.
Oh yeah, we even had 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, and 20 dollar coins, all in gold.
The one-dollar gold piece was quite small, the three coincided with the 3-cent piece (stamps used to be three cents), but the 4 dollar (the "stella") piece was one of those curiosities that I have no recollection why they tried it, like the short-lived 20-cent piece.
Ive always wondered this, is gold priced in troy ounces or normal us ounces?
Quote from: silverback1065 on June 28, 2012, 12:29:22 PM
Ive always wondered this, is gold priced in troy ounces or normal us ounces?
'Precious' metals are priced in troy ozzes (USA$1,553.00 at this typing). OTOH, it makes more sense to me when the price is given in grams (USA$49.93/g). (source http://www.goldprice.org )
BTW, a pre-1933 Double Eagle ($20 gold coin) has very slightly under 30 grams of gold, about $1500 at the above price (actually, USA$1497.90). That was the coin's buying power back then!
Mike
Quote from: formulanone on June 28, 2012, 12:20:26 PMthe 4 dollar (the "stella") piece was one of those curiosities that I have no recollection why they tried it, like the short-lived 20-cent piece.
the four-dollar and twenty-cent coins were both designed to be of identical weight to European coinage: twenty francs and one franc, respectively.
I forget who exactly came up with the $4, but the 20c was suggested by a Nevada representative, who wanted to have Nevada silver circulate internationally. All the 20c coins were struck in Carson City.
Quote from: formulanone on June 28, 2012, 12:20:26 PM
Oh yeah, we even had 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, and 20 dollar coins, all in gold.
The one-dollar gold piece was quite small, the three coincided with the 3-cent piece (stamps used to be three cents), but the 4 dollar (the "stella") piece was one of those curiosities that I have no recollection why they tried it, like the short-lived 20-cent piece.
Actually, we never had a 2 dollar. We had the quarter eagle at $2.50.
This was in circulation for a while...
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Frlv.zcache.com%2Fbill_clinton_3_bill_poster-rf057f6dfa4c544a38805fb9d2fa52698_w5gf_400.jpg&hash=ce8d62be655be70515aa1b0b54cdabaccc5869c2)
:biggrin:
Quote from: myosh_tino on June 25, 2012, 03:07:50 PM
While I can see how Celsius might be better for colder climates (0c vs 32F), I believe Fahrenheit is much better in warmer climates (35c vs 95F). The use of triple digits make really hot days standout more in my mind.
Also, how would the pro-metric folks handle the following (and by "handle" I mean would you keep the customary units or force those in the sport to "go metric")...
Baseball -- 90 feet between bases
Football -- 100 yard fields
Basketball -- 10 foot high baskets
Bowling* -- 60ft lanes, each board is 1-inch wide, pins are 3 lbs 6-9 ozs, all bowling balls are weighed in pounds.
*I'm throwing this one in because I am an active league bowler... would I have to look for 6.80388 kg (15 lb) bowling balls if we went metric?
Personally, I say just leave things as is.
I have no problem with sports retaining Imperial units of measure.
Quote from: cpzilliacus on July 02, 2012, 09:07:37 PM
Quote from: myosh_tino on June 25, 2012, 03:07:50 PM
While I can see how Celsius might be better for colder climates (0c vs 32F), I believe Fahrenheit is much better in warmer climates (35c vs 95F). The use of triple digits make really hot days standout more in my mind.
Also, how would the pro-metric folks handle the following (and by "handle" I mean would you keep the customary units or force those in the sport to "go metric")...
Baseball -- 90 feet between bases
Football -- 100 yard fields
Basketball -- 10 foot high baskets
Bowling* -- 60ft lanes, each board is 1-inch wide, pins are 3 lbs 6-9 ozs, all bowling balls are weighed in pounds.
*I'm throwing this one in because I am an active league bowler... would I have to look for 6.80388 kg (15 lb) bowling balls if we went metric?
Personally, I say just leave things as is.
I have no problem with sports retaining Imperial units of measure.
In fact, the international fútbol guys tried to 'hard-metricate' the dimensions of a regulation field several decades ago (remember, that game, like many others played Worldwide, was developed in the UK) and determined that to change the various dimensions, including the height and width of the goals, from hard yards to hard meters would have too much of an effect on the play of the game. Thus, the FIFA rulebook gives the official dimensions in 'soft' converted meters to a couple of decimal places, while they in fact are retaining their old even yard lengths. Only the radius of the corner-kick arcs is an even one meter.
One big clue to this is if you watch either a football or fútbol game on a field that was striped for both and the midfield line of the fútbol field is the same as the 50 yard line of the football field, the center circle of the fútbol field will match up exactly with the 40 yard lines on the football field.
:cheers:
Mike
But funnily enough, Rugby football, which is far less internationally popular than association football, is fully metricated.
Probably because France is more passionate about rugger than soccer...
"Probably because France is more passionate about rugger than soccer..."
It is? My impression - I studied French, try to keep up, and read French sites - is that rugby's a regional thing, limited to the south and the Paris area (where it may have been transplanted by southerners for all I know). In Belgium, it seems to be completely off the radar screen.
World Cup 98 and Euro2000 did swing things back towards soccer, but even now France backs its national rugby team more fervently than it's national football team - like Wales.
Even in England, Rugby is regional - Union is rare up north, and the area near Bristol, and the area near Slough are the key places. Then again, Rugby League owns the M62 corridor.
Centre Field Line and Right Field at Rogers Centre in Toronto......Imperial and Metric
(FYI......Angels 10 / Jays 6)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-ywHo01rnvcI/T_Nqn9Qis3I/AAAAAAAAIws/_-T_6u8y47k/s800/DSC08572.JPG)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Nr_IOjdvCzA/T_NqnjS3NTI/AAAAAAAAIwo/p3PKYaSaBYU/s800/DSC08571.JPG)