Do you think in Metric or Imperial ?

[CaptainBeaky]

Temperature in C always - can't do F
Walk and drive in miles.
Weight of people - stones and pounds
Weight of materials - kg
Water capacity - litres and cubic metres (far easier to visualise sizes)
Wood in feet and inches
Groundwork in feet and inches
Shooting in yards
Metal in mm (apart from blade lengh in inches )
Cooking in Imperial - pounds, ounces, floz and pints, apart from oven temp in C.

Born in '62, so I'm the changeover generation, and use either or both, depending on what's appropriate.

At a previous job, they used to measure deflection tests in mm per pound of load

 

[TallMikeM]

both/either, depending on what I'm doing. generally think in imperial, unless I'm doing carpentry or other fine measuring stuff, then it's metric. Can't really think about things like 1/16" and so on, much easier to work in mm.

 

[bhofmann]

I read a very interesting preface in a book on green woodworking. The author claimed that using numbers up to 7 was more useful, so switched between units to achieve this. So 7 inches would be expressed as such, rather than 18cm. Made perfect sense to me.

I have ticked both the "easily" and "with difficulty" conversion options because although I can easily convert lengths, I cannot for the life of my understand the imperial weight system. I find stones on the beach and they're not nearly as heavy as people make out!

A little thing I use a lot to try help is:

2 and a quarter pounds of Jam
weighs about a kilogram

 

[FGYT]

coo old thread

im oks in both for engineering in thou's for imperial not fractions for small stuff so 0.040" or 40 thou = 1mm (approx )

no idea with out a calculator what 5/64" =

mix and match for DIY ie mm > inches > ft > m

MPH and miles for driving

kilometers 'Klicks' for navigation on foot etc in Degrees or Mils

ATB

Duncan

 

[Melonfish]

XKCD every monday, wednesday and friday! love it.

 

[Lordyosch]

Fahrenheit is a nonsensical unit to me but other than that I'm ok.

Someone once said climb feet, walk km and it'll all sound dead 'ard!

Jay.

 

[widu13]

Measuring short distances up to 30' ish in imperial, over that and I'm in metric. Carpentry (in the loosest since of the word!) I do in metric.

 

[Rumcajs]

I grew up using metric system.
I know inch is 2.54cm, foot is 12 inches, yard is three feet but for me there is no logic in it.
Fahrenheit, don’t even get me started on this. What the heck was the guy thinking of when he came out with that scale. Celsius made it so much easier. 0C is freezing point, 100C is boiling point.

 

[Whittler Kev]

Have to use both teaching maths. Really stumps suppliers when you ask for some 01 steel, 7" long and 2mm thick 50 years old. Primary and start of secondary in £sd then changed to £p when I was 13. God it was hard. And yes I can remember 4 for a 1d blackjacks & fruit salads (1/2p to you young un's). 11p for a pint of Ansells bitter when I was 16 and £6.90 a week sick pay when I broke my wrist aged 16.
Where's me soap box.
They don't know they're born t'day
fetch me 'ovis yu young whipper snapper.
When I were a lad................. :welcome:

 

[stevec]

i grew up using both, though i did get it drummed into me not to use cm, as they were never recongnised as a "proper" measurment in this country. hence all building/engineering stuff is either in mm or m.

interestingly i read on the hults website that the sweedish inch is bigger than the imperial inch to allow for wood shrinkage after harvesting and transport to england.

steve

 

[demographic]

Has anyone mentioned that the complication with gallons is that the yanks use smaller gallons,
theirs in litres.
1 US gallon = 3.78541178 litres
and ours
1 gal(UK) = 4.54609 L
I imagine this is part of the reason they quote the cars as only getting about two foot six out of a gallon of juice compared to our miles per gallon although the fact that the cars they seem to build being overweight slugs might have a little to do with that also.

Their pints are also smaller as well, 16 fluid ounces compared to out 20 fluid ounces, perhaps reflecting the fact that the beer they brew is tasteless papokenest:

Now where's that whistle smilie?

 

[TallMikeM]

Yup, if I was drinking american beer I think I'd also be grateful the pints are smaller...

 

[Madpuppy]

Here now the Beer ain't that bad I think and use Standard which is what y'all call Imperial I guess, never heard the term Imperial til now. Learn something new everyday. As far as the beer goes I'm a Coors N/A man myself, which believe it or not is brewed in Canada now

 

[zorro]

I use a gloriously anarchic mix at work. Over 40 years in engineering, everything was imperial when I started, whitworth, SWG, fractions of an inch.

Most of the jobs I work on nowadays are designed with metric measurements, but some of the materials used are still imperial, 1/2" tube, 18 SWG metal sheet, 1/16" dia rod.

I am still 6 feet tall and weigh 13 !/2 stone, drive in miles/hour, and work out fuel consumption in miles/gallon.

I also usually cook with the oven on gas mark 5.

I change back and forwards easily enough apart from temperature.........what is it with fahrenheit ??? 0o C = freezing, how easy is that ? and it goes up and down indefinitely from there.
cheers,
Toddy

I believe the celsius scale was devised using the freezing and boiling temperatures of water as datum points, divided by 100 and setting freezing at zero.

Fahrenheit came up with his scale first, then aplied it to the real world, where according to him water froze at 32 degrees and boiled at 212 degrees.

I prefer to use my own scale when describing temperature, eg brass monkies, comfy, and melting.

 

[Pict]

Having grown up in the US and living 12 years in Brazil I'm still a mixed bag with this one. I can't relate height and weight of people to metric and have it mean anything. Tell me a guy is six foot four / 245 and I know something. For distance I think in kilometers, speed mph/kph it all makes sense. For building stuff inches and centimeters are equally understood. Shooting ranges, I think in meters. For the life of me I can't get temperatures in Celsius and still convert everything to Fahrenheit. I would rather use liters and kilos when buying food and gasoline.

Mac

 

[hertsboy]

On principle --- Imperial

but in practice, length definitely imperial by I do tend to think metric when it comes to weight. Probably because I've become used to everything being in metric weights these days.

 

[demographic]

Temperature is definitely Celsius for me, like Toddy I think the 0 degrees for freezing point of water and 100 for boiling's a lot better than Fahrenheit.

Other than that I'm a mixed bag, being a builder I have to cope with different measures anyway, doors come in inch sizes and plywood sheets as well, plasterboard in metric, gallons* or litres are OK by me, height of a person is in feet and inches, miles are easy to convert into KM.
I still ask for a quarter of ground coffee from the local coffee shop despite the fact that I know they don't give me a quarter of a pound anymore and actually give me an eighth of a Kilo instead.

Meh, I can cope with most but the metric system is far and away more logical.









*That's Imperial Gallons, not little US gallons and that four gallon desert fuel tank I bought from the US for my KX 500 doesn't hold anything like four proper gallons. Would have been nice if the supplier knew how many litres it held. Still doesn't last long anyway.

 

[Pict]

The Fahrenheit system makes perfect sense when you realize he based it on the fact that 100 degrees is the point at which it's way too hot to do anything. Likewise 0 degrees means it's way too cold and you should knock off outdoor activity. Mac

 

[ScotchDave]

I can use both equally badly, I buy food happily in imperial or metric masses, I weigh myself in pounds or kilos. Distances are in all units, feet, yards, meters, kilometres and miles all work for me.

It's all because I studied physics and got so used to converting between different unit systems, that now I do it everyday as well. I also have girlfriend in the US, so often end up translating into imperial for her, but gas mileages never work out correctly...

In a bit,

Dave

 

[Miyagi]

Hmmmmm a bit of both.

Growing up in the 70's we got metric at school but were still surrounded by family and older folk who used Imperial.

Personally I can switch between the two, but out of habit when walking it's miles, shooting air rifle/shotgun/catapult it's yards - thanks Grandad.

My kids are all metric thinkers but relate air rifle shooting in yards.

For counting money I'm so glad I never had to contend with pounds shilling and pence.

As my Gran said, decimalisation was easy but she'd been using it even in the days of £ S d.... she must have said quite a few decades of the Rosary over the years.

Until reading this thread I'd never realised how prevalent the combined use of Imperial and metric was nearly 40 years later.