Today I ran into someone I worked with about 10 years ago while we both worked on the 777 program. At that time I was commuting about 110 miles a day round trip and did so for about 4 ½ years. Now we both work on the 737 which is built in Renton which is 60 miles south of the 777 factory in Everett. He lives near Everett and now has a longer commute and when I queried as to his new driving distance, he said 200 kilometers. To me, 200 km could be next door or on the other side of the state, when I asked how far in miles he couldn’t believe I didn’t know metric distances. I have never had to use metric measurements and have never had any real reason to know what a kilometer was. I was never taught the metric system while in school (not required back in the 60’s) and I get along fine with the little bit I run into today.
So folks, what do you use? I prefer the SAE measurement system and see no reason to change. Or am I just an outdated dinosaur?
I’m Australian, so I use metric. I do conversions from miles, mph, farenheit and pounds in my head, if need be.
One exception is height–I find it easier to visualise someone’s height in feet/inches than in centimetres or metres (actually, I don’t even know how tall I am in centimetres). I can visualise people’s build with equal ease in kilograms or pounds (I have no concept of stones, however).
Also penis size is usually measured/visualised in inches.
New Zealander here – we went metric from the 1970s, and I can understand kilometres as far as road distances are concerned, but for walking distance I’m still an old fud-dud and think of miles.
I think of grams and kilograms for weight, metres for height when it comes to buildings and fences, but feet and inches when it comes to people.
Mercifully, I’m just a little too young to remember using pounds, shillings and pence …
Transplanted Canadian here. I’m old enough that I learned Imperial measure in grade school. Then, when they came out with The Metric System ™, I never quite got the hang of it. I couldn’t accept it as a new way of measurement, I was, like a lot of folks older than me, always comparing it to how much it would be in pounds, quarts, miles, Fahrenheit. Always having to do math. (I don’t know of anything that’s measured in decaliters…not milk or soft drinks…)
Now I’m in the US, where Imperial measure is still used, and it’s like when I was a kid. I understand all the units of measurement again. When I talk about the weather with my brother in Vancouver, BC, he uses F to humor me.
Having been brought up with feet, miles, pounds, etc…, I’ve found it impossible to break free from their tyranny. In most cases, it never even occurs to me to consider most measurements in terms of meters or kilograms. I did learn the metric units in high school chemistry, however, so if my life depended on it I could figure out kilometers.
Yankee in a metric land, gradually getting used to it.
Generally, I’ve come to associate them with real things (kilomters/travel time, kilos/body weight, grams of food/prices and meal sizes) so it’s easier now to think in terms of meteric measurements than it used to be.
