Canada switched over to metric when I was in grade two. I should be fully metric, yet I am not. And where I am, and where I am not depends fully on my frame of reference, which may seem kind of random.
Body temperature/fevers? Fahrenheit only.
Outdoor temperature? Celsius only.
Dimensions of a person? Feet, inches, pounds.
Small distances? Centimeters or inches.
Long distances? I get lost at yards, and have to switch to metric. Meters and kilometers.
Acceleration? Metric.
Grocery store? Gas station? All metric. Grams, kilograms, liters.
But with a whole life of metric behind me, why is it that I only understand it if you tell me you’re 5’2" and 153 lbs with a fever of 104F?
Did anyone else grow up in these confusing times? Am I the only one that goes back and forth, depending on the item being measured?
I’m from the U.S. so I didn’t really grow up with the metric system, but we used it in science class in high school. Then I went on to study engineering in college and we used metric in all of the science classes such as physics and chemistry. The engineering classes themselves always used a mixture of metric and English units.
I ultimately ended up in a sales job and I haven’t used metric units in over three years. Still, I have never really found it confusing switching back and forth between the two systems. I prefer working out problems in metric, but I prefer thinking about things in English units.
I’m American, so not fully metricized by any means, but I’ve been in the process of switching to Celsius for a few years (got one of those thermometers with an outside probe, and have kept it set to C). But I’ve only been doing this since I’ve moved to Montana, with the result that I now know cold temperatures in Celsius, but hot temperatures I still have to go Fahrenheit, since we so seldom get truly hot weather around here.
It is of interest to note that the BC ferry system, going from the mainland of British Columbia to Vancouver Island, has the distances on the car decks marked in feet, not meters. And when the ticket taker asks how long your car/trailer combination is, she wants the answer in feet and inches. And if you buy a fishing weight on Vancouver Island it will be marked either in pounds or in ounces.
New Zealander here who went through most secondary schooling with Imperial units. NZ has used metric units for most of my adult life and I pretty much use them for all purposes. Mind you, I’m not stumped if someone tells me their weight in stones or height in feet and inches.
I do find the feel of temperature in Fahrenheit that I used to have has now gone. Temperatures are in Celcius and I need to get out a calculator to check the Fahrenheit except for the ‘gosh’ numbers.
-40F = -40C
61F = 16C
82F = 28C
A recurring instance of collective anachronism is referring to baby birth weights in pounds. I don’t know if I can recall ever hearing someone refer to a baby only in grams. It’s first and foremost in pounds, with perhaps grams after in the few occasions that they are used.
I guess must be a little younger than you, NZ changed to metric in December 1976, so my changeover is towars the end of primary school.
I still tend to use feet and inches for people’s height (and only for that use), but do weights in kilos. Good combo, eh?
Friends having babies recently have tended towards kilos/grams only (or parenthesizing pounds), but it has been persistent.
House section sizes are generally only seen in square meters now, although people may still refer to 1000 m2 as a “quarter-acre”.
So, close to completely metric – people heights being the one exception – but having been involved in fantasy gaming and medieval reenactment Imperial measures are pretty familiar… except Fahrenheit… that one means nothing to me.
People’s height is the only area of measurement where I accurately think in imperial. Fahrenheit I have no clue. I have no natural sense of imperial weights and have to convert in my head to get an idea of what is meant (halving pounds to get rough kilos works). I have a hard time in my workshop because there are a lot of US tools that come in imperial and I don’t have a natural sense of what a 3/32nd drill is but I have a few datapoints in my head so that I can convert to mm fairly easily for the more common sizes.
I also casually use feet and inches in the (say) one inch to a few feet range in conversation, but outside of that I’m back to metric. And I notice that my children have no clue what I am talking about when I do use imperial in this way.
I’ve always thought it strange that drug dealers (from way back in my youth and now on the news) use a mix.
They go from grams to ounces to pounds to kilos.
Ha! I’m younger than the both of you. Metric all the way for me from day 1. Height is still feet and inches though, baby weight I can only think in pounds. House size, I prefer sq ft, but can think in sq m if need be.
I would still ask for a “2 by 4” at the lumbar yard, but know that it is acutally now a 50 by 100 or whatever if asked further.
They are. But my boys, born in 1982 and 1984, were 8lb 7oz and 8lb 10oz respectively. Baby weights are the only things I still think in Imperial.
I was in High School when Australia began the transition to metric. It was odd at first, of course, but I think I’m fully metricified now and have been for ages.
There is a stereotype that inner cities kids are bad at math and with the metric system but studies show that the opposite is the case. They seem to understand it intuitively.
Fully metric for everything except aviation stuff. Then its feet for altitude, knots (or miles per hour) for speed and horespower for engines. I thought like this even before I started flying because all of the reference books, ww2 biographies etc used those units.
Like others I’m nearly all metic apart from people’s height and weight.
I think in miles and mph in general terms, but set my sat nav for km and kph only because I normally drive at 100mph which makes working out timings dead easy
Cooking is all metric weights and measures - I have real trouble working out imperial amounts.
I don’t know when NZ switched, but my friend is from NZ and she uses metric for everything except weight, she always uses “stone” to give someone’s weight.
And she still says fortnight, but I don’t know if that is a metric thing or not. She was born in 1966
I’m in pretty much the same boat as you and I was born long after Canada went metric. I think part of the problem is the older generations always talk in imperial. And then there’s all the products/media seeping in from the states. Most cooking books I have, for example, are from the US. I don’t think there’s much chance of Canada going completely metric unless the US does. And even then it would probably take several generations.
I recall stone often being used when referring to Rugby player’s weights in commentaries… “And here comes ‘Pinetree’ Meads at 15 stone 10 lbs”…
Fortnight is good old English term… (well technically Middle English…) and has naught to do with metric. It’s one of those odd terms that seems to have disappeared from US English, or was somehow never acquired (it certainly pre-dates US English)
I’m an American who lives overseas. I’ve noticed that even the most hard core metric country will still often describe TV screen size by inches. Am I alone in noticing that?
Baby weights are the only things I still think in Imperial.