# How familiar are non-Americans with traditional measurements? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 20, 2012, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110 "2012-01-20T05:24:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110/21 "2012-01-20T17:43:40Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I was wondering things like if you read about a person being “six feet tall and weighing two hundred pounds” would you be wondering if this person was tall and skinny or short and fat? Or if you read about somebody being outside in twenty degree weather, would you picture them wearing a parka or a pair of shorts? Or I saw a joke on a sitcom this week about somebody being a thirteen pound baby and another one on a webcomic about somebody having a five inch penis and I was wondering if non-Americans would really get the punchlines. Only speaking for myself, as an engineer on one hand and an anglophile on the other, I know the approximate metric sizes of some basic units like inches, yards, miles or gallons, but with degrees Fahrenheit, I’m already lost, since you need to multiply and add/subtract to convert, so it’s not intuitive and I don’t know the formula by heart. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110/22 "2012-01-20T17:53:20Z")
I can’t be bothered to learn just how much fluid ounce is; it strikes me as a rather unwieldy increment of measure. ---
**Author:** ![thelabdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@thelabdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelabdude)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110/23 "2012-01-20T17:59:00Z")
In the dog section of Yahoo Answers measurments of dogs and their food comes up. It is highly international. I guess the dog food companies use the same packages in other countries. ‘‘How many grams in a cup of food?’’ Due to the nature of my dog care, I have found it expedient to convert pounds of dog food to cups. I figure the Pro Plan I once measured is similar to other dry foods, about 4.5 cups per pound. I have done enough scientific work to be at ease with the metric system, unlike many Americans. I don’t suffer math anxiety either. In the 90’s when my son was studying architechture in Malta, much of the measurments were still in customary. Some of it was using the uncalibrated template the architect made. ---
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110/24 "2012-01-20T18:29:43Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > The rest of it’s true, though. I find ‘cups’ a bit baffling, TBH. I remember a discussion on here once where some Americans were equally baffled by us using actual weights. Que sera and all that. But I don’t think they’re included in Imperial measurements, are they? American here. I live in Prague and of course we brought measuring cups from the US to use here. I am still baffled by flour, sugar etc being in grams. You can’t even buy real vanilla here so we brought some of that from America too (which we measure in teaspoons). Everything else I am used to - kilometers, Celsius , no problems, but cooking… get my my cups. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110/25 "2012-01-20T18:29:43Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > Australian here: > > Weight measures are pretty much metric through and through. I have no clue what my weight is in pounds. > > Length seems to have hung on longer - you can still find clothes measured in inches, and most people probably know their height in both measures. > > Use cups/tablespoons/teaspoons quite a lot in cooking, but they’re _metric_ cups/tablespoons/teaspoons which probably means I’m subtly fucking up every American recipe I ever tried… Are you sure it is universal? I was reading an Australian car review and they were talking about the mileage in imperial gallons. Come to think of it what do you call mileage in metric? ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110/26 "2012-01-20T18:54:04Z")
> [@JoelUpchurch](#): > > Are you sure it is universal? I was reading an Australian car review and they were talking about the mileage in imperial gallons. Come to think of it what do you call mileage in metric? I’ve never seen petrol or anything else measured in gallons. Maybe they had their information from a US source? Mileage is still called mileage, it’s just that the units are kilometers. 😉 . Or “fuel economy”. Generally X litres per 100km (which of course is also upside down from mpg - no idea why we do it that way) ---
**Author:** ![Laggard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110/27 "2012-01-20T19:12:53Z")
I don’t get the stone thing Brits use soemtimes for weight. Is their some American equivalent? Do Brits just do some conversion thing in their heads to get the weight in kilos? ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110/28 "2012-01-20T19:31:16Z")
> [@Laggard](#): > > I don’t get the stone thing Brits use soemtimes for weight. Is their some American equivalent? Do Brits just do some conversion thing in their heads to get the weight in kilos? We don’t use kilos to weigh ourselves. 14lbs is 1st. It’s the next unit up. Like ounces and pounds, right? Exactly the same. If stone is weird, then so are ounces. I’m about 11 stone. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110/29 "2012-01-20T19:40:52Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Although Canada has been metric for, IIRC, 38 years and all distances, weights, temperatures are given only in metric, people are still weighed only in pounds. And when I report my temperature to my doctor, it is in F. Although when I was in the hospital, they measured it in C. > > But measures of wood and other building materials are still in British units. \ Yeah, Canada seems quite firmly stuck using both systems of measurement. Officially we’re metric, but we swing back and forth at will. Typical Canadian sentence - “It’s -25 degrees out (the Celsius is understood), so I’ll use my car to drive the couple of kilometers to the store to pick up a couple of pounds of hamburger. Hey, did you see my 25 foot extension cord to plug the car in?” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110/30 "2012-01-20T20:03:42Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > Yeah, Canada seems quite firmly stuck using both systems of measurement. Officially we’re metric, but we swing back and forth at will. Typical Canadian sentence - “It’s -25 degrees out (the Celsius is understood), so I’ll use my car to drive the couple of kilometers to the store to pick up a couple of pounds of hamburger. Hey, did you see my 25 foot extension cord to plug the car in?” 😃 Yup. I have no idea my height in centimeters or my weight in kilograms, but I use kilometers and celsius all the time. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110/31 "2012-01-20T20:06:02Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > This doesn’t match my experience where it comes to consumables: beer, flour, oil, fizzy drinks, wine, petrol - everything is sold in metric. I can buy half a kilo of flour or a 500ml can of beer, and would put 50L of petrol in my tank. > > Nor does it match my experience when it comes to cooking: almost all recipes are in metric. > > Stone for personal weight, feet and inches for personal height, and miles and mph I give you, but apart from that everything else in my life in the UK has been metric for years and years. And to everyone else I know too. > > Sometimes it gets a bit odd: mileage in my car is measured in miles-per-litre (though mpg would be understood) which is a bit confusing. I was talking about foods, not drinks. Drinks are metric except beer, of course, and milk, sold in pints but with the metric amount written on the side too. Formally, I see metric and imperial happily co-existing with metric gradually taking over (I hardly ever use recipes, so I take your and San Vito’s word for it that they’ve completely changed to metric - I thought they still wrote both), but informally I hear people refer to things like a pound of potatoes, not a kilo. Perhaps there’s a class difference; you are from a much posher background than me. (Please let this not be yet another thread where everyone gathers round to tell me that my experience of England is wrong, wrong, wrong. Especially ex-pats and foreigners who don’t actually live here). ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110/32 "2012-01-20T20:10:24Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I was wondering things like if you read about a person being “six feet tall and weighing two hundred pounds” would you be wondering if this person was tall and skinny or short and fat? Or if you read about somebody being outside in twenty degree weather, would you picture them wearing a parka or a pair of shorts? Or I saw a joke on a sitcom this week about somebody being a thirteen pound baby and another one on a webcomic about somebody having a five inch penis and I was wondering if non-Americans would really get the punchlines. I wouldn’t be too certain about the weather, actually, partly because I wouldn’t be sure which system you were using. Two hundred pounds I know is overweight, but to really comprehend how overweight I have to convert it to stones - though I’m getting more accustomed to pounds over the years. The rest is the same here. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110/33 "2012-01-20T20:19:39Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I was wondering things like if you read about a person being “six feet tall and weighing two hundred pounds” would you be wondering if this person was tall and skinny or short and fat? I know that translates roughly to 1.80m and 90kg, but I don’t count, since I lived in the US for 5 years; plus, I know that those numbers can mean someone who’s fat or someone who’s large (in the meaning this word had before it started meaning “fat”). My brothers would probably be able to translate the height pretty fast thanks to RPGs, but would need to google the weight. Inches, both Middlebro and I are engineers, so we know that the Imperial inch is 2.54 cm; we can convert if needed but it’s not automatic. As for the weather, I know how to convert from F to ºC (had to do it enough times - and heck, I can even translate into Reaumur), but it’s not and will never be automatic. I only work with the two centigrade scales 😛 And 13lb babies, uh, that’s about 6.5kg actually less take 10% off so 6kg uh… where’s the calculator… it seems to be pretty big, but to know whether it really is big or the rough conversion is totally off, I need the calculator. ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110/34 "2012-01-20T22:05:22Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > I’ve never seen petrol or anything else measured in gallons. Maybe they had their information from a US source? > > Mileage is still called mileage, it’s just that the units are kilometers. 😉 . Or “fuel economy”. Generally X litres per 100km (which of course is also upside down from mpg - no idea why we do it that way) I must of messed up. I was looking at reviews of the Fiesta Econetic and must have mixed up an English review for an Australian review. I checked the reviews and all the Australian reviews said liters per 100km and the English reviews said mpg. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110/35 "2012-01-20T22:12:56Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Although Canada has been metric for, IIRC, 38 years and all distances, weights, temperatures are given only in metric, people are still weighed only in pounds. And when I report my temperature to my doctor, it is in F. Although when I was in the hospital, they measured it in C. > > . The centigrade/Celsius system is not really more ”metric’ than Fahrenheit. > **[On the Fahrenheit scale, why is 32 freezing and 212 boiling? What do 0 and...](https://www.straightdope.com/21342022/on-the-fahrenheit-scale-why-is-32-freezing-and-212-boiling-what-do-0-and-100-mean)** > **[Why do we have so many temperature scales?](https://www.straightdope.com/21343330/why-do-we-have-so-many-temperature-scales)** > > A STAFF REPORT FROM THE STRAIGHT DOPE SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110/36 "2012-01-20T22:33:53Z")
> [@](#): > > The centigrade/Celsius system is not really more ”metric’ than Fahrenheit. Every system of units which uses metric units for length and mass also uses Celsius (or Kelvin, but that’s a direct derivation from Celsius) for temperature. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110/37 "2012-01-20T23:20:19Z")
Celsius might not be SI but it is metric. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2012, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110/38 "2012-01-21T00:18:24Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I was wondering things like if you read about a person being “six feet tall and weighing two hundred pounds” would you be wondering if this person was tall and skinny or short and fat? Or if you read about somebody being outside in twenty degree weather, would you picture them wearing a parka or a pair of shorts? Or I saw a joke on a sitcom this week about somebody being a thirteen pound baby and another one on a webcomic about somebody having a five inch penis and I was wondering if non-Americans would really get the punchlines. I doubt it. French people on the overall wouldn’t have a clue what an inch, foot, pound, mile is Why would they? They never deal with those measurements. I have a (rough) idea, but it’s essentially a result of having spent a lot of time on american internet sites, something the average French has no reason to do, either. And even then, I had to do the maths in my head when reading your post to figure out whether the guy was thin or not. It isn’t intuitively meaningful for me ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2012, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110/39 "2012-01-21T00:27:58Z")
Also : regarding the OP mention of exposure to American medias, it’s not really relevant. The main medias people are exposed to are songs and movies. Measurements don’t appear much in the former and it’s always translated into metric units in the latter. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2012, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110/40 "2012-01-21T00:31:01Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > Perhaps there’s a class difference; you are from a much posher background than me. That would be a weird manifestation of class difference, but maybe you’re right. > [@SciFiSam](#): > > Two hundred pounds I know is overweight, but to really comprehend how overweight I have to convert it to stones Absolutely my experience too. And dividing by 14 in your head is a nightmare. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-familiar-are-non-americans-with-traditional-measurements/610110.md?page=3)