Listen, it’s very simple: In Britain we use the metric system, except for beer and milk, which come in pints. But not plant milk — that comes in litres.

Oh, and distances are in miles. But only if they’re too far to walk — if you can walk it it’s in metres. If you’re driving then your fuel efficiency is in miles-per-gallon, but petrol is sold in litres.

Oh, and your height is in feet and inches. If you don’t care much about your weight it’s in stone (but not pounds — no-one can remember how many pounds are in a stone and it’s hard to read the little tick marks on analogue scales). If you do care about your weight then your digital scales tell you it in kilograms.

Oh, and if there’s a heatwave then tabloids will forecast a “100°F scorcher”. But if it’s cold then it’s an “arctic blast” with “widespread temperatures below 0°C”.

I hope this clears things up.

@katemorley our Canadian distances are metres/kilometres for small/medium, and minutes/hours for medium/long distances. Apple Maps gets it right and provides both, so we don't have to fight about what counts as "medium", and takes into account waiting-for-connection time during travels.

@katemorley About 25 years ago I was working on the software for Alpine car stereos and particularly navigation systems, specifically any extra work required to adapt them to the UK.

The Japanese were rightly horrified by our wanton mixing of metric and imperial measurements when giving directions 😃

@katemorley @Elodie_lyra And don’t forget that the liquid volume measurements (pints etc) are slightly different between the US and UK when following US recipes

@what @katemorley @Elodie_lyra Gallons too for legacy oil based car fuels. Thankfully we don't measure our batteries in horsepower-hours.

Distance is also measured in minutes, but there are two kinds. City minutes which are about correct, and countryside minutes which you multiply by 5 to allow for getting lost and falling into a ditch whilst following the "clear" directions for the locals.

@denny @katemorley Don't the Japanese have out of order street numbers? As in numbers are more or less randomly distributed up and down the street?

I know they have two incompatible power grids.

@mike805 @katemorley Yeah, the buildings are numbered chronologically in the order of building I believe.

I did not know about the grid(s)! That's an 'interesting' decision. I assume it's for historical/hysterical reasons.

@denny @katemorley As I recall, one Japanese town in the 1890s bought an American General Electric power station. Another town on the other side of the country bought a European generator from Siemens. The power grids grew out from there, but they use different frequencies and cannot be interconnected.

Here in the USA we have most things marked in both imperial and metric. I have a can here marked 8 oz. (237 ml) which is typical.

The UK should just issue everyone a units calculator.

@katemorley Yes, but are you using metric or imperial cups (and presumably table- and teaspoons)?

@katemorley you damn imperialists caused this problem. 😝

@etchedpixels @what @katemorley @Elodie_lyra
Except in London, where every journey by any mode is "an hour."

@katemorley I think it may be an age thing - I certainly still measure sub-mile distances in yards, not metres.

@ahnlak @katemorley Do you actually know how many yards are in a mile though? Be honest because most people absolutely pause when I ask them that 🤣 Nobody under 75 was educated in imperial despite the facts the roads use it. The country is a failure and a mess.

@kDelta @katemorley around 1700 I think, but no I don't know the precise conversion - it's only for distances up to about 400 yards and then you start guesstimating miles instead ;-)

@ahnlak @katemorley Not far off, but 1760. Now if I asked you about metres in a kilometre I bet you could answer that instantly with confidence. Since the clue is in the name 😄 You were at least almost there, most I ask really have never even thought about it before and don't even realise until I have asked. 😬

@kDelta @katemorley well it's relatively easy to work out - a mile is ~1.6 kilometres, and a metre is a little longer than a yard (~39 inches).

@ahnlak @kDelta @katemorley A metre measures 3 ft 3,
It's longer than a yard you see

A litre of water's
A pint and three quarters

Two and a quarter pounds of jam
Weigh about a kilogram

@katemorley

The NHS uses metric now for weight and height 😉🤷‍♂️

@simonzerafa @katemorley NHS have done this for many years (also all kids born since 1970s were encouraged to monitor their height and weight in metric, and new babies are weighed in metric)

@vfrmedia @simonzerafa @katemorley
But the midwives 15 years ago still told us the babies' weight in pounds.
Btw, in the UK a pound is 454 g, in Germany it's 500 g 🤷🏻‍♀️

@MiBro
@vfrmedia @simonzerafa @katemorley Even in the Netherlands, which is firmly metric, babies' weight is traditionally given in pounds. Where a pound is exactly 500g/0.5kg.

@viccie30 @MiBro @vfrmedia @simonzerafa @katemorley in Luxembourg (and I guess it's the same for other western european countries?), it is very common to buy/order a pound a bread. It's also exactly half a kilo.

@viccie30
In many Canadian recipes, especially from around the metric conversion, "a cup" is 250mL, sometimes listed as "1 cup/250mL".
Canadians of a certain age have just a broad and deep distrust of all measurements.