In the US we take it to the next level by mixing in imperial measurements. I don’t know about most people but I’m using my phone for conversations between ounces, pounds, then some SI measurements, etc.
Only everyday. I HATE our system. Any math, science, design, I only use the metric system.
It's just so much easier to do math and not nearly as confusing when you're trying to communicate with someone. Pound? Wait Pound Force or Pound Mass, wait maybe I meant a Slug. Horsepower, wait what. It's like someone randomly pulled names out of a hat and assigned them random numbers.
And here in US, we are stuck with imperial units like it was 1800s: oz, pounds, inches, feet, miles, etc for all common usage. When a foreigner visits here, the first thing they realize is how US has truly siloed itself from the rest of the world.
As an American, this doesn't seem any stranger than our dual-units-of-measure system. One is defined in terms of the other. One is what we (mostly) use locally, and the other is what we use with anyone from any other country in the world. People living here know from experience and context which system is implicitly attached to a bare number.
I'm U.S., and I'd assert that all of our informational conveyance (from language to measurements) is a confusing mashup. English is a pidgin language, and we're so accustomed to the weird mashup that it doesn't seem jarring to us sometimes to mix metric and imperial in the same context. Not defending it (because it's honestly awful), just explaining why we might not notice until it's pointed out to us.
We use imperial for long distances, but SI for short ones. We use imperial for human weights, but SI for food and drink weights (excluding the pint!). Height is in imperial as well, mostly. Temperature is in SI.
It's all quite confusing when you explain it, but pretty natural when you live there
This actually gave me an idea for a way to get people to pay for your app. Use metric in countries that use imperial units and vice versa. It would be an awful thing to do.
The funny thing about the imperial remnants is that for almost all general tasks, Canadians still use pounds for weight (groceries, body mass, vehicle weight), but we don't use ounces. We use feet and inches to measure people, but metres for almost everything else, except nautical speed. Litres for gas in cars, sometimes gallons or pounds instead of litres for gas on boats. Pints for blood and beer, ounces for hard liquor, litres for all other service and retail fluids.
People complain about inconsistency and lack of standards in the use of measurements in the U.S, but it is actually much more consistent there. It turns out that decimal units aren't really better for any practical purpose in a typical person's life, and it's certainly worse if you need to know both!
Even in the U.S. of course, engineers, mechanics, plumbers and others still have to deal with a mix. Think metric-based and imperial-based bolts, metric v. imperial lumber sizing.
Which humans? I have grown up in a completely metric system, pounds ounces, fareignheit, miles, feet, inches and all the rest are absolutely meaningless to my brain. If I want to use them, I have to look up the conversion to metric and go from there.
Nah, we don't do anything like as consistent and understandable as that. We use a random mixture of imperial and metric measurements where the "right" one to use in each context is determined by cultural norms.
E.g. we measure petrol in litres, beer in pints, wine in litres (but actually centilitres), long distances in miles, short distances in metres, weights of people in stones, weights of everything else in kilograms (except home cooking which is split between imperial and metric) and fuel efficiency in miles per gallon.
The fuel efficiency one is really dumb given that we buy fuel in litres.
I do think decimal measurements have become more popular over time, though, even in areas where we haven’t switched to metric. I’m more likely to say something weighs 1.5 pounds than one pound, eight ounces. (On the other hand, we absolutely still use feet and inches ubiquitously).
I like in the US and am from EU.
As a result, while I try to ask for things in imperial units, I happen to ask for tools and related things in metrics from time to time. My experience is as follow:
- most people actually just get me exactly what I want
- nobody ever complained "why do you ask metrics, you're in the US we use imperial!!", ever
- nobody ever told me "I don't know what that makes in inches, do you know it in inches?" (or similar), ever
So while I'm just one person and all, I still have a feeling this could eventually work.
I’m American and feel like I live in the “in-between” too. I measure people in ft and lbs. I measure wood in ft and inches. I design 3D objects in cm and mm unless I’m building in wood, in which case I’m back to feet and inches. I measure speed in miles per hour. I use tools mostly in metric but sometimes in SAE (depending on where it’s made and what it is).
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