Anything over 95ºf is time for shade and a beer. Or over 80º… I’ve noticed that typically when referring to ºf, it’s usually below, like 10 below. For ºC, it’s usually minus, like minus 10.
I didn’t know that. I don’t do conversions. I just use Celsius for everything but cooking.
I very sincerely doubt most Canadians know this.
I agree. I think most Canadians adapted to the Celsius scale through gradual familiarity rather than any particular formula. I admit that I was resistant at first, doing things like flipping my car outdoor temperature reading to Fahrenheit, but I’m totally used to it now and have a good sense of both temperature scales, as I think most older Canadians do. The younger ones probably don’t even have a sense of Fahrenheit temperatures at all, except as they relate to cooking.
I agree; continual weather reports in Celsius on the TV and radio news ensured we all got used to it. But, there is a formula, and prior to Canada going metric, I well remember a middle-school science teacher trying to teach it to us. Something about taking 5/9 of the Fahrenheit temperature (or maybe it was 9/5 of the Fahrenheit temperature) plus or minus 32. Or something like that in reverse to get Celsius to Fahrenheit. I remembered it just long enough to pass our 7th grade science test. Interestingly, we didn’t call it Celsius; in our class it was Centigrade.
In terms of distance, it often depends on the listener. If my 20-year-old nephew asks what the road distance is from Calgary to Lethbridge, I’ll tell him, “It’s about 200 k.” But an old friend of mine, of about my vintage, will understand “It’s about 120 miles.” However, both will understand, “It’s about two hours.”
Regarding use of the letter “k”: I don’t know if other Canadians do this, but I don’t think I’ve used the term “kilometer” in years. My friends and I just say, “k,” as in “It’s 200 k to Calgary,” or “I’m at k-marker 690 on 17 eastbound.” (Which I actually did say once on a phone call to a friend while driving in northern Ontario. Hands-free phone, of course.) Do any other Canadians just say “k” for “kilometer”?
Aren’t airplane and ship speeds still measured in “knots” worldwide? Of course - the UK and the US had different definitions for it until 1954. Knot (unit) - Wikipedia
Measurements are weird. Israel, for instance, is completely metric… with the exception of pipe diameters, which are measured in “Zoll”, an obscure German unit that may or may not be equal to 1 inch.
DOH!
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I just remember the rough rule of thumb (use 10’s instead of 9’s)
Know 20 is room temp (68F but I say 70); 0 is freezing is 32F; -40 is -40.
Below 0 / 32 is cold 10 is about 50, coat or sweater weather. 15 is 60, 25 is 80, 30 is 90, etc.
If I need to be more precise or stray beyond where the approximate values work like that, then I have to do the math in my head. For example, at extremes, 35 is not 100 it’s 95, so 40 is 104 not 110. . But both those fall in the category of “too hot out” - does it really matter if it’s 95 or 100? I suppose if I lived somewhere where 40/104 was a common occurrence i would care more about the nuances. ( Similarly 0F is -17 not -20, but close enough)
My head just lives in a place where I can relate to both temperatures but rarely convert between them.
I don’t know specifically about Israel, but I guess this “Zoll” unit refers to the Whitworth system, which standardises pipe diameters and the associated screw threads and which is still in use in Germany. I’m not a plumber myself, but as I understand the German version of this Wikipedia article (which is, in this regard, more illustrative than the English one), this “Zoll” (a word which is, in other contexts, indeed the normal German translation for the imperial inch) does not have an obvious correspondence to the actual diameter of the pipe. It used to have one, though: In the past, the “Zoll” figure denoted the inside diameter of the pipe in question, in inches. Then, when pipe manufacturing standards improved, it became possible to produce pipes of the same internal diameter with thinner walls. To maintain compatibility with existing tools, the "Zoll " figure was maintained for any given outside diameter of pipes, while the inside diameter increased compared to the old pipes with thicker walls. So nowadays, the “Zoll” figure does not correspond to either the inside nor the outside diameter.
South Africa is entirely metric for ovens.
There are no common non-metric units used here. I had to explain feet and inches and miles to my teenage daughter when she started playing D&D.
Beer does come in “quarts”, but that’s the local name for a 750ml beer. And 500ml is a metric pint.
On another note - why are people posting as though cups and tsp aren’t metric measurements? They are - 250ml and 5 ml, respectively.
Cups in US recipes are an imperial measurement. 8oz, 1/2 pint, 1/16 a US gallon, which comes to 236ml and change.
Not really. US cups & pints and UK imperial cups and pints are different sizes. Though both share the pattern that 8 floz = 1 cup, 2 cups = 1 pint, 2 pints = 1 quart, and 4 quarts = 1 gallon.
A UK cup is ~ 284ml. A US cup is, as you say, ~236ml.
The correct term for US units in general is “US customary units”. Whatever else they might be, they aren’t the same as “imperial units”
Not here. Sometimes I hear “clicks” (or maybe that should be “klicks”) but I just say “kilometers”.
Every engineer does. And if you also know -40F=-40C than it is more practical for most than finding 5/9 or 9/5 of some constant and remembering whether the 32 is plus or minus.
Okay, some Canadians know 10C=50F. I don’t know why they don’t teach it my way. Lots of Canadians live close to the border or season in Florida and are extensively exposed to archaic temperature scales.
Yes, I often add 83.3333333333 ml of flour to a recipe, and 0.625 ml of salt.
The rule of thumb I heard is “double it and add 30”. That’s why there are 42 beers in a metric six-pack.
Personally, I don’t do conversions. I just use Celsius. (Except for cooking). How often do you need to do conversions ?
An imperial quart is 2 pints, or 40 fl oz. but a pint is 20 oz , 2.5 cups. Hence, a gallon is 160 fl oz. but just to make life interesting, the fluid ounce is different between US and Imperial. Wikipedia says “cup” is not commonly used in Imperial measurements, but that’s not my experience - Maybe because of the US influence on Canada.
An imperial fluid ounce is 1⁄20 of an imperial pint, 1⁄160 of an imperial gallon or approximately 28.41 ml.
A US fluid ounce is 1⁄16 of a US fluid pint and 1⁄128 of a US liquid gallon or approximately 29.57 ml, making it about 4.08% larger than the imperial fluid ounce.
Scientists are forever switching between Celsius, Fahrenheit and Kelvin scales. These days, I pretty much only switch when watching American news or travelling there. I prefer oven temperatures in Fahrenheit and given a Celsius number (from some cookbooks) would convert it. I automatically convert as a courtesy when talking to Americans to sidestep the awkward conversion conversation.