Metric vs Imperial System

[Arakhor]

I found in Germany fuel economy was measured in the amount of fuel used to go one km vs in the US we measure how many miles you can get out of one gallon. It's interesting, same ratio, just using a different base.

Not helped by the US gallon bizarrely being a smaller measurement than the Imperial gallon.

For the longest time I thought executor was two different words, like how the imperial officers pronounce Lord Vader's ship on Star Wars as Exec-u-tor, vs someone who chops off heads is an ex-acute-or. Then I realized it's the exact same word with a different pronunciation in Britain.

That's because an executor is someone who does something and an executioner is one who chops off people's heads.

 

[Zardnaar]

For the longest time I thought executor was two different words, like how the imperial officers pronounce Lord Vader's ship on Star Wars as Exec-u-tor, vs someone who chops off heads is an ex-acute-or. Then I realized it's the exact same word with a different pronunciation in Britain.

Yeah I thought that ship was the Execute or as in headsman.

 

[Arakhor]

Besides, you don't say "EX-e-cute-ive" (rather than "ek-ZEK-you-tive") for a businessman, so why say "EX-e-cute-uh" (rather than "ek-ZEK-you-ter") for the manager of your will?

 

[Arwon]

For the love of god can people use IPA or at least capitalise where they're putting the stress on these transliterations

 

[Arakhor]

I added in capitals above for you.

 

[uppi]

Not helped by the US gallon bizarrely being a smaller measurement than the Imperial gallon.

Well, that is what happens when you make a measurement system by picking one of the various silly units available: One country chooses a beer gallon and another chooses a wine gallon.

 

[Arakhor]

Prior to the Metric system, everyone was picking silly units. The Americans just decided to pick different units to the country that founded them because, why not, I suppose.

 

[Cutlass]

Prior to the Metric system, everyone was picking silly units. The Americans just decided to pick different units to the country that founded them because, why not, I suppose.

Just because we mostly copied the mother country doesn't mean we couldn't make it better.

 

[Arakhor]

Granted, but first you'd have to show that you actually did make it better, rather than just different.

 

[Arwon]

That's nothing, we have two different beer glasses called "pints" even within one country

And across eight capital cities there's almost no commonality in both preferred sizes and names for them

 

[Zardnaar]

That's nothing, we have two different beer glasses called "pints" even within one country

View attachment 547998

And across eight capital cities there's almost no commonality in both preferred sizes and names for them

Same here. A pint when I was a kid was a bottle of milk 600mls.

A pint at the pub could be anything.

 

[Arakhor]

How ridiculous. A pint should be a pint (568 ml, unless you're American).

 

[Cutlass]

Granted, but first you'd have to show that you actually did make it better, rather than just different.

It goes without saying.

 

[Arakhor]

It goes without saying.

Then it can be dismissed without saying, too.

 

[Zelig]

A pint at the pub could be anything.

That's what pub owners would like, so they can sell smaller portions for the same amount of money. Thankfully, that practice is prohibited by law.

 

[Zardnaar]

That's what pub owners would like, so they can sell smaller portions for the same amount of money. Thankfully, that practice is prohibited by law.

Yeah they don't really do pints here now. Normally it's small,large and jug. A jug is a litre.

A jug in some places is a 1.8 litre craft beer. Normally you expect a jug to be a little and around 8 bucks but the big ones are $20.

 

[tuckerkao]

Not helped by the US gallon bizarrely being a smaller measurement than the Imperial gallon.

Americans tried to decimalize the imperial gallon(which can be easily figured out using dozenal math), this is why the ratio between the 2 measurements almost equals to 1.20 : 1.00.

Why not making 1 Imperial foot = 12 inches, 1 US foot = 10 inches, so people will have fun converting more numbers with more double standards for the similar units?

This makes conversions harder, not easier -

 

[Thorgalaeg]

So what?

A huge chunk of all English words come from French. English speakers on either side of the Atlantic have changed spellings and pronunciations over the years. No one thinks maintaining fidelity with French is important in English.

And if you're going to make us use the meter, at least let us spell it the American way. Besides, when it even matters, it's just written as an m anyway.

Do you say "metric system" of "metirc system"?

It is a matter of coherence and of knowing what's one speaking about...

 

[tuckerkao]

You'd be wrong

Celsius is easier to calculate because boiling = 100° and freezing = 0°, Fahrenheit has better precision. When half degrees are added in, the precision should be strong enough for Celsius, but longer displaying.

Fahrenheit would have no chance to win against the Dozenal Celsius if the world has that base as the default, because of the whole divisions of 3 with no remains. Also Dozenal Celsius has pretty good precision to its unit digit too.

It was the fault of the decimal base that caused so many different measurement systems and each retains some advantages over others.

It's possible to combine the strength from both sides into a new unit, but only result in a different math base -

 

[Arakhor]

Fahrenheit has more precision, but it's an unnecessary precision. As I recall, Fahrenheit was based on a system of eights, using bodily measurements, but needed to be slightly recalibrated, which is why the "important" measurements on which the system is based (body temperature and frozen/boiling water) aren't useful numbers.