Originally Posted by
Martin Spence
I grew up in the UK and with Metric. Moved to the USA over 30 years ago. When I first moved I thought in metric and converted to imperial in my head. Over the last 30 years I transitioned to thinking in imperial and converting to metric if I had to. Not quite sure when that transition happened - but I am now much more comfortable in imperial.
A note to a comment upstream about pints and beer. I have a friend who used to say "a pint's a pound the world around." It's a nice memory aid - but unfortunately not true. A US pint is 16oz, but an imperial pint is 20oz. So the UK, Australia etc. are 20oz pints. Which also means that there are about 5 liters in a UK gallon verses about 4 liters in a US gallon. Just more for the confusion in conversions between measurement systems.
An interesting reversal on converting from one system to another. I doubt there is anyone in Oz who would even think about a pint and certainly it is not possible to order any fluid by the pint, even beer! I would say with some certainty that the vast majority would look at you with puzzlement if you even mentioned the word. You are right in saying that the slight differences across the Atlantic between the two different imperial systems further complicates things when it comes to conversion to metric. Why did the US decide it had to be different and invent a new imperial measuring system/standard?
Last edited by Chris Parks; 06-29-2022 at 8:11 AM.
Chris
Everything I like is either illegal, immoral or fattening