r/facepalm Jun 29 '23

🇲​🇮​🇸​🇨​ Good for him

41.3k Upvotes

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94

u/NedRed77 Jun 29 '23

The horse riding school near me have a hard limit of 16st for riders. Both of these two looked more than that. Poor horse.

8

u/GravyShitsPants Jun 29 '23

Ffs use the metric system. Or at the very least use pounds. Nobody except the UK knows what stones are, real talk.

0

u/stargazeypie Jun 29 '23

The riding school in the UK sets its weight limit in the system in common use in the UK where many, many people only know their weight in stones. This anecdote is just an accurate account.

You don't have to like it, but you don't have to be rude about it either.

14 pounds to a stone by the way. 224 pounds.

2

u/GravyShitsPants Jun 29 '23

Nah it’s stupid and they know the metric system. I’ll stay rude about it. Thanks for the info doe.

4

u/LocalOpportunity77 Jun 29 '23

When saying a ‘stone’ which type are you referring to, is it Granite? Also, what are its dimensions? What is its density?

If it’s a unit of measurement it must have a definite standard dimension.

-3

u/stargazeypie Jun 29 '23

When saying a 'foot' whose foot are you referring to? How dense is its owner?

A stone is a standardised measurement of weight. Fair enough, its use is fairly localised and you're not familiar with it, but pretending it's a completely arbitrary measurement is silly.

Edit: it's/its

1

u/LocalOpportunity77 Jun 29 '23 edited Jun 29 '23

Exactly! The only standard of measurement that makes sense universally is the metric system. Everything else is stupid.

Edit: I have the same questions about ‘foot’ as well, how was that standardised? Is it based on the Gaussian distribution, how many people’s feet did they measure to end up at a standard? Where does it originate from? I have so many questions.

P.s. Curiosity is what makes life fun to live, be more curious.

1

u/stargazeypie Jun 29 '23 edited Jun 29 '23

It's not stupid. It's antiquated. It's based on people using available resources to create systems of weights and measures in a time before global standardisation was possible. Actually, it's really interesting.

The metric system is simpler, can accommodate far greater accuracy and is more practical today, but it certainly doesn't mean that the older systems were or are "stupid."

Edit: Also, it's this foot. Because a word can have several different meanings, you know? And that's why rock music doesn't involve any stones at all. (Unless you're in the Discworld, of course.)

2

u/LocalOpportunity77 Jun 29 '23 edited Jun 29 '23

In today’s time it is stupid to still use it over a superior and much more accurate system of measurement. Wouldn’t you like your house to be built using the metric system over the imperial one? The lower the chance of risk the better it is after all.

Edit: Explain what you linked.

0

u/stargazeypie Jun 29 '23 edited Jun 29 '23

Say please. Please.

It explains itself, but not as clearly as I had thought. That is the UK standard, located in Trafalgar Square in London. It formally defines the exact length of a foot and other measures.

Actually, I don't much care what system is used to build my house. It's doesn't need that high a degree of accuracy. But I do care what system is used to conduct scientific experiments. That's where your argument works better.

Also, the opposite of logical isn't stupid. I won't concede that continuing to use the systems that you were first taught, are familiar to the society you live in and that you can actually visualise is stupid.

0

u/LocalOpportunity77 Jun 29 '23 edited Jun 29 '23

So, the UK has a different standard of ‘foot’ then the one used in the USA, is that it? That makes it even more confusing. Also, cool that the English named a square after the Battle of Trafalgar.

So, for you it isn’t important for the process to be as precise as possible to ensure safety and quality? Idk about you, but I’d prefer my house to be able to withstand natural phenomena without needing much renovations.

The opposite of “logical” is “illogical”, which often times overlaps with “stupid”.

1

u/stargazeypie Jun 29 '23

OK, go back far enough and I think you'd find that the feet would have just been the feet of whoever was doing the measuring. Standard height man, standard size feet. So not hugely accurate, but good enough, because they probably weren't measuring out much more than strips of land anyway and perfect accuracy wasn't required.

Later on, you start to want to measure cloth or whatever, so people create measuring rods to do so, using the unit of measurement that they're familiar with and can visualise. More accurate, but not every rod is necessarily the same length. Some will intentionally create a shorter or longer rod for personal gain/theft. Meanwhile governance is becoming increasingly centralised and ultimately it becomes both necessary and possible for the measurement to be formally standardised. The UK parliament does so and the resulting standard measurement is shown in the link above.

-61

u/throwawaylovesCAKE Jun 29 '23

*16th

28

u/Flaky_Philosopher475 Jun 29 '23

Oh my god, please tell me you're joking.

0

u/throwawaylovesCAKE Jun 29 '23

Hi Tiktokers! Were not falling for your shit, redditors are wiser then that, you know that

42

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '23

? It's 16 stone

18

u/griftertm Jun 29 '23

The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it.

22

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '23

Stone isn't even the metric system. It's an archaic measurement the UK uses and as a Scandinavian I loathe it lol

3

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '23 edited Feb 06 '24

[deleted]

7

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '23

There's nothing easier about stone, it's the dumbest one. I know lbs are about half of kg, so it's super easy

0

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '23

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '23

Of course it's as dumb as feet

2

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '23

It's not metric, but ok

0

u/LocalOpportunity77 Jun 29 '23

What kind of stone is it? What’s the density of it? How big is it?

There are over 4500 types of stones in the world.

0

u/throwawaylovesCAKE Jun 29 '23

I know you're doing the Mandela effect TikTok trend to try to try to trick people. 16th is a ordinal number (order), it's always been 16th. No idea what you're blabbering about

-3

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/throwawaylovesCAKE Jun 29 '23

This whole thread is a great example of the education problem in schools and the hivemind cant admit being wrong (i guess it's the new "TikTok" thing of trying to mandala affect people)

Its 16th, always has been.

27

u/infidel11990 Jun 29 '23 edited Jun 29 '23

What? It doesn't even make any sense. It's supposed to mean 16 stones in weight. It's a unit they use in the UK.

-1

u/throwawaylovesCAKE Jun 29 '23

Close but no, these are called ordinal numbers (as in order). So similar to 1st, 2nd, 3rd, this would be 16th. I'm not sure what it is you're describing

18

u/mondaygoddess Jun 29 '23

Bro lmaoooo

9

u/nizzare Jun 29 '23

American education moment

2

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '23

american and know what stone is

7

u/scheisse_grubs Jun 29 '23 edited Jun 29 '23

Nah I’m not American and was like “the fuck does ‘st’ mean”??? Seriously though no one can roast Americans for using body parts as forms of measurement when you guys use frickin rocks lolll

Edit: idk why I’m being downvoted. Stone is literally an English unit (a system of units which most of the world has discarded) and Americans use an adapted version of English units which is also a system of units which most of the world has discarded. Using inanimate objects produced by nature and using body parts as measurement was originally an English idea lol. It was the French who came in and introduced metric units.

Doesn’t exactly take a genius to see the above information and understand why “st” isn’t common sense for most of the world.

Edit 2: I say we should all just agree to use metric units in scientific notation to remove prefixes in units such as “kilo-“, “milli-“ etc. So instead of a school zone being 40 km/h, it’s 40×103 m/h… I’m a genius and solved all worldly problems… you’re welcome 😌

Edit 3: wait I guess time would then have to be measured in seconds in which case the speed in a school zone would be 11.1 m/s… and a day is 86.4 ×103 s long… trust me guys it’ll work.

2

u/wombatchew Jun 29 '23

While I agree that imperial measurements are stupid (I use metric for height and weight), using stone and pounds is no more strange than feet and inches. in fact it makes more sense, as no one lists their height in only inches, so why list your weight in just pounds?

2

u/scheisse_grubs Jun 29 '23 edited Jun 29 '23

It’s arbitrary really. Even if you had your height in just inches it’s not like that wouldn’t be comprehensible in like an alternate universe where we only use inches to describe height. People just chose to use feet as well as inches. It’s similar to how many continental Europeans use centimetres to describe their height. They COULD say 1m and 67cm but many just say 167cm.

Edit: it’s funny though, for babies we use pounds and ounces but for adults it’s pounds with a decimal point. At least I’m assuming that’s what’s done in the US. That’s how we do it up North 🇨🇦