- cross-posted to:
- xkcd@lemmy.world
I’m British, I’m 5 foot 10, 76kg. I buy my petrol in litres but measure the fuel efficiency in mpg. If I want to measure a short distance (other than my height) it’ll be in mm, cm and meters, up to about half a mile. I think I buy my beer in pints but unless it’s at a pub it’s probably actually 500ml. Milk again I think is in but it’s almost always 500mm, 1 litre etc.
When I cook everything is metric, at least, unless I have a stupid American recipe then I’ll have to find an old teacup.
At least temperature is always Celsius, unless my mum is telling me about the Daily Express headline weather warning, then I have to remind myself that she’s not telling me my blood will literally start boiling next week.
My mate, Big Dave, was 6ft 10in. He was just a giant man, not just gangly like some very tall folk. He used to tell people who regularly asked that he was 4ft 34in.
Wow, that’s 3/32 ch, and ~ 20 cm
I’m finding it weird how quickly my brain just accepted the switch in the comic.
Doesn’t Canada always mix imperial and metric in nonsensical ways?
Mixing metric and imperial is base-tier Canadian.
Sure, we will measure our height in feet/inches, except on our driver’s license, and weight in lbs, except at the doctors office. We’ll measure our car’s speed in km/h numerically, but if you hear a Canadian say “miles per hour”, it also means km/h, unless we’re talking about driving in the US, then it is actually mph…maybe.
Now, ask a Canadian how far away something is.
but if you hear a Canadian say “miles per hour”, it also means km/h
Tell me you’re joking.
Nope!
Some explanation though, Canada adopted the metric system and converted to metric in the 70’s-80’s. I remember seeing street signs in imperial and signs advertising the conversion (“50mph is 80kph” and stuff), so a large portion of our population spent a good chunk of their lives on imperial, or grew up with those people as parents. So, what happened is, the signs changed, and our speedometers changed, but people’s brains still went “this is miles per hour”, and well, it kinda stuck.
Now ask me how far it is from Toronto to Ottawa…
Well, if you insist… How far is it from Toronto to Ottawa? (bracing myself…)
Is the last part where I answer “about 10 hours”?



