Measurements
- Thread starter SandwichShortOfAPicnic
- Start date
Timenspace
Legendary Member
But you said nothing wrong, or incorrect. Was it your tone? Did I miss something?
Timenspace
Legendary Member
I didn't get what he did wrong, so I asked Tasty
...that's the sad emoji for...Like kneeling on corn kernels, horrible, we were shown in a School Museum...
Timenspace
Legendary Member
Speaking of measure units, we do have some old ones too. I remembered when we bought our family cottage, many years ago, the locals would use the old, not the metric. Am bad at remembering numbers...
I quickly googled it, it seems it dates back to the 18th century and Maria Theresa of Austria.
A HVAT ("a catch?") = 1,8965 meters.
A square hvat= 3,5967 m2
(I'LL try to find the original Austrian name for Hvat) yes, Klafter...in German.
There are smaller units...with vivid names: foot, fist, thumb, dash.
I quickly googled it, it seems it dates back to the 18th century and Maria Theresa of Austria.
A HVAT ("a catch?") = 1,8965 meters.
A square hvat= 3,5967 m2
(I'LL try to find the original Austrian name for Hvat) yes, Klafter...in German.
There are smaller units...with vivid names: foot, fist, thumb, dash.
grumpyoldman
Active Member
the only thing i can think of now that is still sold in liters here now is soda
don't know why that didn't go back to the old standard
until i read this thread i didn't know a pint was different in other parts of the world
don't know why that didn't go back to the old standard
until i read this thread i didn't know a pint was different in other parts of the world
JAS_OH1
Forum GOD!
There are some Irish and British style pubs in the US that sell 20 oz. pints in keeping with the old country.
I didn’t answer with a proper answer, as in, “There are 3.8 liters in a gallon, therefore, a gallon is nearly four times the size of a liter, and the formula for converting that is to use 3.8 as a multiplier, such as 1 gallon multiplied by 3.8 equals 3.8 liters in a gallon.”
Instead, I just used common sense. Mustn’t have that in school!
JAS_OH1
Forum GOD!
Yeah, she wanted you to say something like "a liter is 33.8 ounces" etc. And I know a liter is 33.8 ounces not only from the Coke bottles, but also the plastic water bottles so commonly sold by the case are 16.9 ounces each (1/2 liter).
I know, plastic waste is horrendous. We keep them on hand for emergencies, however. I also have a few gallon jugs in my pantry. See, we have a well that is run by an electric pump, so if the electricity goes out, we don't have water!
grumpyoldman
Active Member
you just never know what you will learn on here do you
Timenspace
Legendary Member
Oh boy oh boy, to a thousand tulips with them!
badjak
Über Member
We still got odd ones, but dying out
An El (short of elbow) for length
So you go from holding wine or rope between thumb and pointy finger, around your elbow and back.
It's 70 cm I think and it sort of makes sense when measuring twine or rope
There are other ones but they escape me right now
I've been using metric since the 1970s. It's absurdly easy because everything depends on multiples of 1, 10, 100, 1000, both for solid and liquid ingredients. For me, it's way simpler than having 12oz of this, 1/3 cup of that, 1 inch of this, 2 pints of that. Mind you, for really small measurements, like a teaspoon, or a pinch; I'll just leave it at that.
When metric came into force in the UK in the 1970s, the two things which were excepted were pints (of beer) and miles.
Curiously enough, though, when you go to a hardware store and ask for a tool, or a pipe, or a tube, they'll give you the measures (ie. the diameters) in inches. A half inch pipe, a 3/4 inch spanner, a 1" tube. Drives me nuts.
I'm amazed that the so-called developed world can't come to an agreement to use the same standards of measurement for everything. I think it's just a stubborn attempt to cling on to the past.
Thank goodness we no longer measure in cubits.
When metric came into force in the UK in the 1970s, the two things which were excepted were pints (of beer) and miles.
Curiously enough, though, when you go to a hardware store and ask for a tool, or a pipe, or a tube, they'll give you the measures (ie. the diameters) in inches. A half inch pipe, a 3/4 inch spanner, a 1" tube. Drives me nuts.
I'm amazed that the so-called developed world can't come to an agreement to use the same standards of measurement for everything. I think it's just a stubborn attempt to cling on to the past.
Thank goodness we no longer measure in cubits.
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The world has.
There are only three countries in the world still using the Imperial system and the die hards in the UK holding onto imperial are.. well.. dying
I know the US is one of those three, but IMO, we don’t really belong on there, as we do use the metric system here, but we just use it alongside the imperial system.The world has.
There are only three countries in the world still using the Imperial system and the die hards in the UK holding onto imperial are.. well.. dying
It’s taught it school here, I had classes way back in the caveman 1970’s on the metric system. Our medications are all in milligrams, alcohol (except beer) is sold in milliliters (I doubt there are more than a handful of people in the entire US who know off the tops of their heads how many ounces are in a bottle of wine, but regular consumers know it’s 750ml, because that’s how it’s listed).
Virtually every product for consumption has ounces and grams/milliliters on it…16.9 ounce bottles of water also say 500ml. Just about everything is like that. Food nutrition labels are all in grams, too.
Automobiles have mph and kph listed side-by-side on their speedometers, and have done since I can remember…the mid-80’s at least, anyway, as my first new vehicle had that, from 1988. Most every stick ruler I’ve seen has inches along one edge, and centimeters along the other, even when I was a kid, it was that way.
Our biggest problem as Americans is, even though we use the metric system every day, usually without even thinking about it, we still like to sound like cantankerous rebels to the rest of the world, so we proudly tell everyone else “We don’t need that European BS here!” while chugging our liters of Diet Mountain Dew.
Not sure that’s how the rest of the world views it..we still like to sound like cantankerous rebels to the rest of the world, so we proudly tell everyone else “We don’t need that European BS here!” while chugging our liters of Diet Mountain Dew.
Buying products marked in grams and mls is one thing and what you actually work in day to day (ie are fluent in) is another.
I along with all my contemporaries had to learn both systems but not at school.
School was fully metric in the 70’s but the rest of the nation wasn’t. Fortunately they were still obsessed with teaching fractions so it wasn’t too hard to learn.
When I did (and please remember I was a chid) I thought it was unbelievably stupid that anyone would want to carry on with it when metric was so simple and so accurate but then I couldn’t believe people voted for Brexit based on the idea they’d get a blue coloured passport
