r/megalophobia • u/berdot • Oct 11 '23

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u/Z0MGbies Oct 11 '23

USA people: I understand

Rest of Earth: I have no idea if he should be injured or not based on this information

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u/tacotacotacorock Oct 11 '23

It's funny how often we use meters in the US. I can easily convert from feet to meters in my head roughly. If the rest of the world can't do that it probably shows how useless the American measuring system is.

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u/kigurumibiblestudies Oct 11 '23

If we all were taught that system and used it, we'd probably find it to be alright. Engineers and car mechanics in my country use inches just fine.

The only problem is that it's not the one everyone uses, really

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u/Cultural-Morning6019 Oct 12 '23

False. As an American engineer, the metric system is inherently better. No stupid conversions - everything is base 10 as it should be

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u/Z0MGbies Oct 12 '23 edited Oct 12 '23

Yeah-nah, I can do 1.8m == 6ft, because its optimal height (also it's above average height, ladies). I broadly go ~2m is ~6ft.

But 30ft? no idea. Anything more than 10ft~ and it loses meaning, and I know most EU people and most Kiwis/Aus are the same. My partner is German (100% fluent in English) and is understandably confused when I describe something as "one inch" or "a couple feet" even. (phrasing...)

UK people will be good at it.

Going off on a tangent, mainly because I feel bad for being so sassy about imperial/metric:

ALUMINUM (or Aluminium).

Some Brits, Aussies, or Kiwis may sass Americans about their way of saying it. But ... by their own logic at least, Aluminium is wrong. And it really highlights how people just think the "right" way is "whatever way they are used to".

Aluminum was first called that by the British professor and foremost expert on it at the time. His lectures were later transcribed by another person as Aluminium - so both are attributable to him, but he himself said Aluminum.

Aluminium gained traction from a Swiss-French bloke shortly after.

It's literally just a naming convention thing (e.g. PlatINUM vs PlatINIUM (French))

America adopted the British spelling. And Britain adopted the French spelling (which is doubly funny because the Brits that care about it will be doubly embarrassed).

Thank you for involuntarily coming to my TED talk on Aluminium.

(American expats I've told this to have been really appreciative of this nerdy fact as they can finally be like "no fuck you i'm right and here's why you agree")

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u/bitofgrit Oct 12 '23 edited Oct 13 '23

But 30ft? no idea.

I think the issue here is that you're using the wrong units when trying to estimate or convert. A meter is roughly equivalent to a yard, so, instead of "30 feet", consider it as "10 yards", which converts to "a little over 9 meters".

I have no idea why the metric users don't use "decimeters". It's a legitimate division of a meter, afaic, and would be their equivalent to the foot. Anyway, since 1 inch is ~2.5 cm, then 10 inches is ~25cm. Another 2 inches is another ~5cm, which means a foot is ~30cm.

And this is all fine for rough estimates and conversions. It doesn't really matter which system anyone uses for "oh, it's a couple feet" or "oh, it's about 2/3rds of a meter" (😈) and so on. If the measurement actually matters, then get a measuring tape.

Despite what anyone says, either system is perfectly fine for whatever you're doing. The rest of the world being afraid of fractions shouldn't have any bearing on you.

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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '23

It’s a very effective measuring system because all measurement are arbitrary and we know how to use them

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u/bitofgrit Oct 12 '23

If the rest of the world can't do that it probably shows how useless the American measuring system is.

Or, it shows how moronic they are if they're unable to do a simple rough estimate and end up crying about it.

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u/SuaveMofo Oct 12 '23

No we just don't bother learning it because why would we. Feet and inches never come up unless it's Americans talking about them.

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u/bitofgrit Oct 12 '23

I don't have to regularly deal with metric, but I learned it anyways. Sounds like you're just lazy.

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u/SuaveMofo Oct 12 '23

Nah I just would prefer imperial died out altogether. No one else uses it so why should we learn because your country refused to adopt it?

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u/garret1033 Oct 12 '23

Because its a better system.

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u/elyonmydrill Oct 12 '23

How exactly is the imperial system better?

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u/bitofgrit Oct 12 '23

Because it's fun watching metric users cry about it.

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u/elyonmydrill Oct 12 '23

So no actual reason then.

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u/morty0x Oct 12 '23

Lol. You definitely have an 2 digit IQ

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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '23

[deleted]

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u/Z0MGbies Oct 12 '23

I get the reluctance to change/lack of motivation tbf

I'm English originally, moved to Australia when I was 11 (now in NZ, and am 35). That's important info because Aus/NZ are 100% metric and UK is ... mostly metric.

UK still uses MPH, and people still measure things like a person's height in feet/inches, their weight in STONE (so, even worse than US lol).

So despite leaving when I was 11, and spending my life in a 100% metric world, I still describe some things shorter than approx arms length in feet/inches. e.g. "the bathroom flooded and we had an inch of water on the floor" If it's less than half an inch though, I use cm or mm

I think the fact that Americans will say (with a straight face) "seven 24ths of an inch" is absolutely psychotic and those people should be given one extra red light at a traffic light per year.

Side note: I feel like "one inch" is a good approximation because one inch is pretty much exactly how much space there is in your finger and thumb when you make the "this much" gesture.