BARF!!! 
BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!
Imperial idiot, you slay me… 
Well, learning how to be dense isn’t quite what I had in mind, but point taken. 
You’ve made my day by calling me a kid!
Maybe physicists use kilograms as a unit for liquid, but down at the local supermarket (which is where the OP’s problem occured) and for most other purposes it’s measured in litres.
Except for the pub… the last bastion of anti-metric resistance where we sup our
pints
Cheers.
Young mascaroni 
Now if I can just get someone to call me young.
I prefer my beer by the gallon, but that’s just me.
Duh. Three quarterpound mls, of course. Which is about 333 grams, if I’m not mistaken.
Here in Holland, I’ve had the reverse happen to me once. The weight of meat is often expressed in pounds, where a pound equals 500 grams (or half a kilogram). Picture the scene: circa 1993, a butcher’s in Maastricht, Southern Netherlands. Yours truly walks in, in preparation of preparing a nice, cheap & easy student meal for 7 or so friends.
Me: “I’ll have one kilo of ground beef, please.”
Rather dumb girl behind counter: “One kilo? Errr. Uh. One kilo, you said?”
Me: “… yes… ?”
[sub]Bear in mind, we’re in HOLLAND here. This place has been metric since Batavian times, ferchrissakes. Well, OK, not THAT long, but certainly longer than the deer-in-the-headlights-looking bimbo on the opposite side of the counter has been using up our oxygen.[/sub]
RDGBC: “How much is one kilo?”
Me: “…” <I look at her like she just asked me how much one and one equals. In fact, the question she asked me is arguably even DUMBER than that.>
Me: “Come again? You’re asking me how much a kilo is?”
RDGBC: “Well, yes… people never order in kilos here.”
Me: “… I see… OK, what DO people order then, usually?”
RDGBC: “Half a pound, a pound, like that.”
Me: <grinding teeth and covering up laughter at the same time> “I’ll have Two Pounds of Ground Beef, then.”
RDGBC: “Oh, OK.”
The girl puts the meat on the scales, until the digital indicator reads 1.048 kg. Her doubtful eyes meat my approving nod. I thought about educating her some more, but frankly, I’d wasted too much time there already. I paid and left.
How DO these people manage to get to work every day without, I dunno, getting run over by 26 cars?
Sometimes you need to walk a body through the process:
*“Hello, I’d like one pound of shrimp, please.”
"Coming up." (measures out one pound of shrimp) "There you are, sir. One pound of shrimp."
“Sorry to be such a bother. I’d rather like to have some of this for each of the next three nights. Could you possibly divide this into three equal portions?”
"mutter, mutter, grumble, grumble." (divides shrimp into three packets, wraps and labels them) THERE you are, mutter, mutter sir."
“You know, I’ve just remembered, I have dinner engagements planned for both Saturday and Sunday. I’ll only be needing one of these. Thank you so much.”*
:blink:
Please tell me that the scale had both measurements displayed - pounds and kilos - or else I have no idea how the ditz managed to get anyone’s orders right. Er, but then she’d just look at the pounds part and ignore the kilos reading, so why would she need prompting…
My head hurts.
I didn’t examine it thoroughly, and it’s been more than a decade, but I’d say the scale was in kilograms only. So, I’m assuming she knew “a pound” as we define it corresponded with 500 grams. She just didn’t realise that 500 grams equals half a kilogram.
It’s scary to realise that someone can grow up to be an adult in an all-metric nation without knowing what our unit for mass is. Especially when they’re in a profession which involves weighing things all fucking day.
Yet, these people exist.
Coldfire, I don’t know how it is done in The Netherlands, but some 30 years ago in the Rineland-Pfalz of Germany there was a common measure of weight called a “pfund”, about a half a Kilo or approx an Imperial pound. It was very handy since a “halb pfund” of fresh strawberries was just about the right amount to cover four servings of rich, un-pasteurized ice cream or use for a torte. It seemed like there were two measurement systems going on, metric and an older medieval system that was still holding on at green markets and service counters.
A pint’s a pound, the whole world round.
SG, the Dutch system has the same roots. Officially, merchants can no longer advertise it as a “pond” (the Dutch word in question), but have to denote it as “500 grams”. In speech, the term “pond” remains, though. I suppose it is a leftover from days gone by, but at the same time, it clearly DOES mean half a kilogram. And everyone knows this - except that girl, on that one fateful day.
26 metric or imperial?
They get about $3.50 round here. (Insert Loch Ness Monster Joke here)
Fagjunk Theology: Not just for Sodomite Propagandists anymore!
Coldfire, I must confess to a certain inability to pick up sarcasm…
'cuz I was always told 1l (or 1000ml) of water weighs 1 kg.
I teach people like this. Correction: I attempt to. It makes me weep.
Imagine if you will a whole class full of [*don’t say it don’t say it must be nice must be positive about my students *mutter mutter]. I swear any denser and we would have spontaneous fusion.
At least I can now tell them that they can get a job weighing in a supermarket and it won’t matter.
Typical American definition of “world” :rolleyes: Over here, a pint is 20oz and the rhyme is “A pint of pure water weighs a pound and a quarter”. A gallon is hence 8 pints or 160 fluid ounces. And it takes a man to quaff an English gallon, Q E D
Lets not confuse the issue of the difference between mass and weight. We are not comparing kilograms with slugs.
I’m amazed people that dense don’t drop dead everyday because they forgot to breathe.
Only at Wetherspoon’s pubs… It’s more like two and a half pounds in most others…