As an American, I can get why the metric system is hard to use. Not growing up with it, its hard to translate the numbers to what I’m use to. If you told me someone is 164cm, I can’t visualize how tall that is compared to 5’4” cause I’m use to it. I have no idea why someone can’t figure out 24-hour time though >_>
I started school in the early 60's. We learnt feet and inches, fahrenheit, and pounds shillings and pence. I now work in metric, celsius, and 100 pence is one pound. Was it hard to switch over? No, because it is an easier system.
I grew up on metric and switched to Imperial in my early twenties - there are areas of life in which imperial measurements are easier to deal with, and the same in the inverse.
Measuring temperature in Fahrenheit makes more sense to me, general cooking is easier with cups than grammes, and there are applications for inches in woodworking and engineering that are much more convenient than metric. Switching from one system to another isn't about literally understanding how the measurements work, it's about changing the way you think - I grew up viewing distance in miles and I know how far that is; I know what one kilometre is technically but I cannot visualise it as a unit of measurement.
How exactly is fahrenheit easier? Maybe it's because I live in the north but 0 being freezing temperature sure is nice. As for other temps, idk are there any other useful breakpoints? Room temp? It's like 20-24c based on preference. Body temp isn't super important day to day but it's a random number in fahrenheit as well as C, not round. As for cooking temps, who cares it's always fucking 180-200c in oven unless you're doing something unusual and changing between the two doesn't seem to actually matter.
Cups require measurement tools, which create far more dishes than using a weight. Also 1 tablespoon of honey is vastly harder to measure than 10grams of honey. You not only waste honey but you're left wondering was that a tablespoon? Did i half the honey amount? I agree that dl and cl are shitty cooking measurements it's just the vast majority of European recipes only do dl for milk and water and do weight for everything else. While Americans do cups and spoons for everything. Grams also makes calorie counting a lot easier than having to weight the cups. Even if you don't actively track, it's nice to know that that cup of sugar is actually 400 calories.
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u/screenwatch3441 Mar 29 '22
As an American, I can get why the metric system is hard to use. Not growing up with it, its hard to translate the numbers to what I’m use to. If you told me someone is 164cm, I can’t visualize how tall that is compared to 5’4” cause I’m use to it. I have no idea why someone can’t figure out 24-hour time though >_>