Do you think in metric or imperial units

Southern California, civil engineer. It’s, well, all over the map in my line of work - and seriously, in the US as well. We buy and use some stuff by the liter, and we’ve been known to run some 5k races, seems to me. But mostly use customary US units, sure.

Highway distances… well, in So Cal, we’re famous for measuring distances in minutes. How far is downtown LA? About forty minutes.

I’m still impressed with the trivia that 100 kph is a decent highway speed. So how long will it take to get to Barstow if we see its 200 k distant? Simple: 2 hours. We’d need to overcome a lot of resistance, but I kind of think that metric highway signs would finally catch on if we could somehow just get on with it and get over it.

South African here, with British ancestry.

Completely metric, with the odd exception of length, where if I’m estimating something, it’s always Imperial, but if I’m measuring, it’s metric all the way.

“Please move that chair a couple of inches to the left.”
“How much?”
::tapemeasure::
“Please move it 4.5 cm”

Length - kilometers, feet, and inches are what I use most
Volume - metric
Temperature - while cooking Fahrenheit everything else metric
Mass - mostly imperial, but when measuring food metric.

Canadian here. I think in metric mostly (and measure in metric exclusively), but often speak in imperial units when they roll of the tongue more easily (but only when estimating, like how grimpixie described). I’ll refer to something as “a few miles away”, but I’d say “8 kilometers west of here” and never “5 miles west of here”. Volume is almost exclusively metric; I can never remember how much an ounce is (and they seem unwieldy). A person’s height and weight are still imperial, for some reason.

I have some Canadian topographic maps that measure distance along the ground in metres, but altitude in feet, making the gradient expressions rather odd, for example 32 feet per kilometre. Gradually things are going metric, but you still have to take care when reading the maps.

That is certainly interesting. I noticed you used the term “altitude” rather than the term elevation that I am familiar with.

I’m wondering if your topographic maps are designed to be used by aviation pilots who throughout most of the world use feet instead of meters when defining a vertical location (altitude).

I should have use the term “elevation” rather than “altitude”, for “elevation” is the term used on the maps.

The topographic maps produced by the federal government used to be entirely in Imperial measurements. When Canada went metric, the quick and temporary fix was to change the grid on the maps from Imperial to metric for the upcoming editions. Changing the elevation contours, however, required actual re-mapping, rather than simply laying down a different sized grid, so the maps were published with the new metric grid without changing the old Imperial contours, with a view to eventually getting around to re-drawing the contours as funding permitted.

In everyday life, I’m all imperial. But in my former life as a biology/chemistry student, I was all metric in the classroom. I was able to do the conversions in my head easily, now, it takes some doing – except in cookery. I run a cooking community online and regularly post recipes with both imperial and metric measurements, and Fahrenheit and Celsius temperatures for baking. Which reminds me, does anyone know of anyone/anywhere who still uses Gas Marks?

As a German, I’m happy to live in a country that’s metric through and through, but when speaking English, using kilos, meters and liters somehow seems a bit off. That might lead to the point where I’m talking to my Australian friend and say: “He’s about 6’2”." and she’ll ask: “How tall is that?”

I know, I’m strange.

Metric Canadian, but I know my own weight and height in English alone.

Also, the thermostat I bought at the Rona LAST YEAR only has Fahrenheit, so I had to Re-learn that one. But I already knew it from family trips to Florida, anyhow. 65 means put a jacket on like the old folks, and 110 is the time when mum will let me put the a/c on just a teeny tiny bit. :smiley:

When I learned German at school, I used to know “pfund” and whatever the German word for inches were. Lol, whole lotta good they did me!

I had to answer “it depends” for everything. Born and raised in the US, I have lived in Canada for over 40 years and was here when the big switch came. So nearly everything is sold or signed in metric (major exception: lumber) I usually translate it into US (not imperial!) units. Especially temperature, which is harder as it uses a different zero point. All the other changes are linear.

Living in Japan for 20+ years, so pretty much everything is as easy in metric. Japan still uses its own unit for area for size of rooms and houses, so I use that as well.

I didn’t get a real good feeling for small amonts of weight until I started cooking.

For distances, while I can go back and forth between miles and km, the unit I love the best is Salt Lake City blocks, seven to a mile.

I live in the United States. I don’t work in the sciences. I don’t drink soda pop. I have no reason to ever need to think in metric or convert. With one exception: in the kitchen. Nowadays when I pull foreign recipes off the internet, I need to convert volume and temperature units. Maybe also length units to measure the sides of baking pans. But I don’t cook metric every day, so I don’t have the habit of thinking in metric; I go online and convert. I actually have the unit equivalents memorized, but I still run the figures through conversion programs. Only once in a while will I do the conversions in my head, based on 1 teaspoon being 5 ml.

As I write my recipes, I’m a bit self-conscious of my provincialism in remaining out of step with the metric world, but I’m American and I’ve decided to write like an American. Speaking of which, I put “a different system” for volume, thinking of the US gallon instead of the imperial gallon. Otherwise, as far as I know, US measurements are pretty well equivalent to imperial.

As for reading about science: physics, chemistry, microbiology, and especially astronomy are measured on scales that have no relevance to familiar human dimensions, so that conversion to customary units becomes irrelevant, and I’m simply used to taking in the data metrically, when it’s all within a scientific frame of reference. For geology and macrobiology, though, I admit I fall back on thinking in customary units, because it’s comparable to human scale and helps me with intuitively understanding the subjects.

Having a job in a international industry, I was forced to talk and think in metric units. Metric/Imperial come naturally to me now without conversion.

I got a lot of training/mentored from a native European guy who now lived in Canada. He was adamant that I conform to the metric system and (somwhat) critical every time I used an English unit.

After being told that the entire world uses metric except the US we went out for a steak dinner. He ordered the 16 oz :dubious: Ribeye. I wanted to say something, but for once in my life, I bit my tongue.

I never understood why a metric type system never was employed for time. 60 seconds in a minute. 60 minutes in a hour. 24 hours in a day. 7 days in a week. 4.1-4.4 weeks in a month. 12 months in a year. etc.

Time finally gets a to a metric-esque system when talking about years/decades/centuries etc.

I’m Canadian.

Height/length: I generally use feet and inches over meters and centimeters, but kilometers over miles.

Mass/weight: I generally use pounds over kilograms, but ounces are only used in referring to steak. I don’t discriminate between a ton and a tonne.

Volume: I always use liters or milliliters over gallons/quarts/pints/ounces. I would still say “1 cup” instead of “250 mL”, though.

Temperature: When discussing the weather, I almost always use Celsius. But for the thermostat, I use Fahrenheit.

Height/length: imperial. I’m fine with metric too unless it’s a person’s height. Centimetres are more useful for very small measurements.

Weight: Imperial - British Imperial, that is; your gallons and pints are not the same as ours and, since I don’t drive, I never have to deal with gallons anyway. Human weight is stones and pounds.

When my daughter was born the hospital refused to tell any of the new parents their new baby’s weight in pounds and ounces, so all their relatives were asking for this info and the parents were saying ‘er, 3.25 kilos, whatever that means.’

Temperature: either works fine for me.

Australian here, been metric for many years.

Height/Length depends on what is being measured. I always regard a person’s height in imperial (ie, a person is 5’11") because I cannot for the life of me ‘picture’ a person being 183cm tall. It just doesn’t figure in my brain** :stuck_out_tongue:

Distance I always measure in metres and kilometres, mass/weight always in grams/kilograms, and temperature is always in degrees celcius.

**I wonder about the commonsense of TV segments like Crimestoppers, who give details about an offence and ask people who may have witnessed the event to call the cops. They ALWAYS describe the alleged offender as being ‘so-many-centimetres’ tall, but I reckon that immediately alienates just about anyone over the age of 45 who, like me, still calculate in the old feet and inches paradigm.

Am an Englishman who’s lived in several different countries:

Length: I understand KM but have more familiarity with miles. I understand metric human height measurements but have more familiarity with feet and inches.

Area: I have no idea what a hectare is. I understand what an acre is. However I ‘get’ square metres as well as square feet.

Mass/weight: completely metric for absolutely everything - unless it comes to human weight, when I deal in stone and pounds.

Volume: exclusively metric except for beer which I drink in pints. I do know what a British gallon is, but don’t need to use that part of my brain any more.

Temperature: Celsius FTW. However, because I was the generation that spanned the changeover, I can understand Fahrenheit between about 50 and 110. Beyond those extremes I have to revert to Celsius to understand them. As F approaches freezing I become mystified because it makes no sense: 0 should be freezing in the human sphere. Similarly above 110F I don’t really know amounts. E.g. I was talking about Dubai with an American friend today, and I said it was 50C when I was there. I know that 50C is officially ‘fucking ridiculously hot’, but didn’t know instantly what that was in F so she could comprehend. Turns out it’s 122, which coincidentally is officially ‘fucking ridiculously hot’ in Fahrenheit too.

British tabloids usually report ‘record highs’ in Fahrenheit and lows in Celsius, because it sounds better that way. It does mean that I think of that really cold winter day as being -7 and that really warm Summer’s day as being 84, which would be a bit of a wide range in temperatures.