It’s also used in measuring soft drinks like the 2 liter bottle
I often see posts where people say that they weight like 260 liter bottles and lost 7 liter bottles over a week or something. Americans are crazy.
Americans use the metric system… to define the true values of the entirety of our customary measurements!
If the dollar is the reserve currency of the world, metric is the reserve system of measurement.
We’re really all just depending on SI at the end of the day.
By the way, the dollar is metric. 🤯
The United States has been on the Metric system since the late 1800s like every other Western country.
In what useful sense?
The units Americans use (Miles, feet, cups, ounces, etc.) actually are Metric units. They’re just not the standard ones. Because, again, The United States has been on the Metric system since the late 1800s like every other Western country.
Citation needed. Those are United States customary units per Wikipedia. Often incorrectly named Imperial units, but this is the first time I’ve seen it argued they are metric.
Also, The Metric Conversion Act happened in 1975, so not since the late 1800s. It also carves out that use of metric is voluntary.
The majority of U.S. customary units were redefined in terms of the meter and kilogram with the Mendenhall Order of 1893 and, in practice, for many years before
From the article you linked
Not redefined as ‘metric’. It means the base measurement is connected to SI along a fixed constant. Meters and kilograms are the base units for length and mass in SI, which is actually metric. The respective USCU units for length are inch, foot, yard, and mile and mass a really annoying number of things.
The systems of measurement are connected, but USCU is not metric.
It’s all metric behind the scenes. When you pump your gas it shows gallons, but it’s doing the math in litres. We turned our backs on the ⅓ lb burger, we’ve trained corporations to treat us like idiots.
Yeah engineers use metric then we convert because you (general) don’t understand metric and don’t want to learn
I’m an engineer but I work in imperial. Most machines run inches so I design in inches.
Fair enough I actually use mixed because my maintenance department doesn’t like metric but we have foreign bosses and suppliers
A thousand grams to a pineapple, and 20 football pitches to a kilometre. Simples!
“There is a considerable overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest tourist”
Every food label, with very few exceptions, lists the contents in either grams or milliliters, in addition to ounces or fluid ounces. Every thermometer I’ve ever seen has both Fahrenheit and Celsius scales. We buy electricity in watts with metric currency. We measure the light output in lumens, and the common lightbulb sizes are measured in millimeters, but the wires that carry the electricity are measured by AWG. The parts on my bicycle and car all use metric measurements, except for tires. Tires are an unholy abomination with section width given in millimeters, the cross-section in a unitless ratio, and the rim diameter given in inches.
Meh, what’re you gonna do? We switched to, or adopted, SI and metric where it made sense, but we have a lot of legacy systems.
I recently converted all my recipes to metric and now I dump everything in a bowl on a scale. Total game changer.
I usually use grams to measure things into equal portions, easy maths I can often do in my head.
That is because weight is more accurate than volume.
Volume was previously used because the measuring tools were cheaper and easier to use than a scale.
It’s more accurate, it dirties fewer dishes, it’s easier to scale recipes for larger or smaller batches, and it’s much easier to fine tune portions. Plus, I make a very consistent coffee. I found something I like a lot, and I want it to be extremely repeatable.
I do, as a metric person, feel like doing things by volume is way more fun though. And I mean visual volume, no measurements. I’m radical like that.
What are measurements precious?
I feel that you are the type of person that is responsible for recipes with instructions like “knead until it feels right” or “make in the usual way” 😜
My favourite recipes are 100 years or older. They usually aren’t very instructive.
But what if you cook on the moon? Checkmate!
Huge portions!
Actually doesn’t even matter, but you will cook for 24 people instead of 4.
Welcome to the modern times!
Drugs too!
Let’s not forget liquor!
But liquor comes in shots, cups, pints, fifths, and handles?
Quarts and forties too. And smoots.
It also comes in my dad :(
Hi it’s me, Liquor.
Saw a great joke on TikTok the other day:
Father: “Okay, why did you call me to school?”
Principal: “Your son was found smashing pumpkins.”
Father: “What? What’s the big deal? Bring him here, I want to speak to him.”
Principal: “Alright, bring him in.”
Father: “What? This isn’t my son.”
Other Student: “Nah, I’m Pumpkins.”
Don’t you want your dad to have a little fun once in awhile?
Also quit spying on us, it’s creepy.
A fifth is 750 mL, a pint is 200 mL, and a half pint is 100 mL. I always assumed it was no coincidence that the amounts in mL are so even, but maybe I’m wrong.
A fifth is 750ml!? There’s no way that’s true. So when someone says they drank a fifth, they drank 750ml of ~*40% alcohol!?? That is wild…
Sorry, edited.
Most things that are sold in a fifth are 80 proof, which is actually 40%
A US gallon is 3.785L which makes a fifth 757 ml. A pint is 1/8 gallon so ~473 ml.
An imperial gallon is 4.54609L which makes a fifth 909ml and a pint 568ml.
If your bartender is giving you 200ml pints you’re really getting ripped off.
Nah, we just use it to define inches and pounds and the like.
We also use it for engine displacement.
Basically all cars are all metric (for fasteners, etc.) these days. Even my '90s Ford is metric.
The lugnuts are the only place you will find SAE on a modern passenger vehicle.
Don’t you just love how tire width is measured in millimeters, but diameter is measured in inches?
Tire treads are measured in 32nds of an inch, brake pads are measured in millimeters, brake rotor thickness is usually inches but sometimes millimeters, brake rotor diameters and offset are usually millimeters but sometimes inches, alignment measurements are usually degrees or minutes of angle sometimes also inches, pressures of coolant or tires are psi or bar…
I have a '93 Ford and it’s a bastards mess of SAE for one bolt and Metric for the next one.
You will never regret buying a lot of extra 10mm sockets and wrenches. Bonus points if you have some spare 12s as well.
Bonus points if you have some spare 12s as well.
Nah, it’s 13mm that’s the other common size. (Why? Because it’s secretly 1/2" in disguise, LOL.)
GM past about 1978 is almost entirely metric too, depending on the engine combination and specific plant. I took an 1984 Cadillac apart a few weeks back and the entire drivetrain is Metric while most of the body stuff are SAE/inch. Very confusing amalgamation.
3.8l was almost all metric except for the intake bolts for some reason.
Hold on, that’s not fair, we also use it to measure how much Coca Cola is in the bottle…hmm never mind that’s not helping… let me start over…we also use it for drugs! Wait, shit…
I love how soda comes in 12 oz cans and 2 liter bottles. Mix and match!
And don’t forget the 20oz bottles too!
My favorite is the 16.9 ounce. It’s such a weird and awkward number that makes no sense until you realize it’s the nicely round 500 milliliter bottle.
But people still call it the 16.9 ounce bottle. -_-
Nice
Metric was too confusing for bullets, so we use both, and but neither of them are actually the diameter of the bullet, most of the time.
.223" is the same diameter as 5.56mm (which is 5.7mm across), but if you use 5.56 in a 223, it might kill you.
223 in 556 is fine, might fail to cycle.
then why is it called 556 if its actually 5.7?
556 was the measure of the inner diameter of the rifling of a barrel of a gun that shot 556.
Metric is confusing. That’s why for most shotguns, we measure the width by the number of lead spheres of that diameter that would equal one lb, eg a 12 gauge shotgun is the diameter of a 1/12lb sphere of lead.
Nobody knows how big 18.53 mm is, but everyone knows what a 12 gauge shell looks like.
Oh, and gun powder is measured in grains, maybe early smokeless pellets were about the same size as grains of wheat.
Grains as a measure of weight comes from the Troy weight system, think Troy ounce of gold. It is a very old system that for a long time was mostly used by apothecaries and probably has its origins in Ancient Rome.
Grains Apothecary is used to measure powder charge weight is because it was a “fine” enough scale for measuring small amounts of things that if you get it even a tiny bit wrong, can kill you. So, ammunition manufacturer’s looked around and scales used for accurately measuring small amounts of drugs were commonly available, so they went with that.
Cool side point: Powder charges are checked by weight and dosed out, (or thrown), by volume as it has always been done since the first gonnes were a thing.
The problem is it’s impossible to tell whether you’re joking or being serious
He’s correct and showing the…quirks of the system.
say it ain’t so!
Mostly.
he’s serious. The old casting method for round shot was to dump a measured amount of molten lead from a tower into a pool of water 40 feet below. the molten lead would form a sphere in free fall and fully set in the water, so it was convenient to define gauge diameter by fractional weight of a pound. Twelfth pound sphere fits a 12 gauge gun, etc.
That’s actually fascinating. Thank you.
No problem. There’s always a reason, and usually a pretty interesting one, for old odd hold overs like this, but it’s been 200 years since shot towers were a thing, only history buffs and muzzleloader enthusiasts really know about these.
The problem is it’s impossible to tell whether you’re joking or being serious. Throwing molten metal off the tower sounds like the most ridiculous thing ever, but apparently is a real thing.
Here’s where it gets political. I learned about shot towers in passing years ago and thought that was a good idea. You learned about shot towers in passing, but then with a detailed explanation, still thought that was ridiculous. One of us is prone to rational thought and the other is not. This is a 17th century conversation happening now.
Ah no, it’s just that from reading this, I imagined it being poured outside, not inside the tower.
Like, someone looking at Galileo doing his experiments dropping weights off Pisa tower, and saying:
— What if we put a bucket underneath? What a splash it’d make!
And another one going:
— Yeah! And why just weights, let’s throw molten lead off! What safety concerns? Haven’t heard any
Maybe the original was 5.56mm and some dumbass decide “nah, not enough b u l l e t, better make it 5.7mm.”
OK, so there is a 5.7mm, that’s the same diameter as 5.56/.223, but it’s not compatible with either because of the french.
I look into it. 5.7 is shorter than a .223 and is a much smaller grain.
Kinda?
The case is both shorter and narrower than 556/223, so it won’t even sit right in anything not designed for it. But FN makes quite a few guns that use it.
Even the “metric” measurements for firearms ain’t necessarily true measurements either. Lots of them get rounded off or simply depend on just how they made the measurement to start with, (land to land or groove to groove). In any case a bullet diameter is almost always going to be just a tiny bit larger than actual bore size for modern cartridge bullets.
To be fair, we mostly just did that for the European bullets
I think the British measure calibres in imperial.
That’s not how that happened.
You must think us Americans are just really stupid because we still use imperial, and violent because we’ll only modernize our units for weapons, but you’re wrong.
We also use metric units for dispensing soda, and measuring engine displacement.
So we’re fat and we’re obsessed with cars too!
dispensing soda
Only the 2 liter bottles. We still generally use 12 ounce cans and 20 ounce bottles. Our gas station/fast food fountain drinks are also measured in fluid ounces.
20 ounce bottle? that sounds British, aren’t they usually 16 ounce pints in the states?
Our vending machines usually dispense sodas in 20-ounce bottles, or 12-ounce cans.
16-ounce pints are a very common size for beers (and even coffee), but not for sodas.
We’ve got 1 litre bottles as well.
The 1 liter bottles aren’t common throughout the US, and from what I’ve seen, seem to mainly show up in the northern states near Canada.
Also for marathons. To work off all that soda.
We also using when weighing drugs!
If you’re gonna start somewhere; it makes sense to start with the schools…
The US does in fact teach the Metric System in schools, it just doesn’t get used for much outside of the Sciences, Firearms, Alcohol, illicit and Prescription Drugs, and Soda.
We really need to just slowly leech it into everything.
That’s pretty much what we’re doing. If you look the list of things that use, or at least have, metric measurements is actually pretty long. Most of the fuss gets kicked up because of we still use Miles / Feet / Inches and for mass we use pounds.
We see far more metric measurements than we actually notice every day. Almost every item in your grocery store shows both US Customary and Metric measurements right next to each other on the label. And we buy whisk(e)y in 750ml bottles.
But I would argue there is probably little reason to stop buying butter by the pound(454 grams) vs switching to selling butter in 500 gram packages. And no one misses buying whisk(e)y by the fifth rather than in 750mL bottles. Even when traveling no one really cares how many miles or kilometers it is from New York City to LA. All anyone really cares about is “how long” will it take to get there. Nor does matter if you measure your dick in inches or centimeters - it’s still gonna be too short according to that woman you picked up at the club last weekend. I honestly suspect we are going to keep using a bastardized mixed system for a very long time for common everyday usage while doing “official” things metric.
The real question is: Where did all those 9/16" wrenches disappear to during the “good ol’ days.” And why can’t I find that bloody damn 10mm socket today? What is up with that?
Hey we also use it in medicine to treat all those bullet wounds!
