Do you think in metric or imperial?

Do you think in metric or imperial?

Author
Discussion

BrassMan

1,482 posts

188 months

Wednesday 1st October 2014
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Borderline bilingual. People are in feet and inches, stones and pounds or kilos. Human sized things tend to be the same.
Can use fahrenheit or centigrade for room temperature, centigrade for others and Rankine for absolute. Pressures, I prefer psi and can just about use bar, can't stand Pa.
Heavy weights I can use kg, lb or cwt.
Density is kg/L, std. gravity or psi/ft head equivalent.
Engines are lf.ft, bhp and litres.
Base 10 is rotten. It should be eight or twelve.

Dress sizes, however, make no sense.

Bradgate

2,819 posts

146 months

Wednesday 1st October 2014
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In winter, when it's cold, metric eg -5c.

In summer when it's hot, imperial eg 82f.

Lots of people do this, but I'm not sure they all realise they are using 2 different scales....

waterwonder

995 posts

175 months

Wednesday 1st October 2014
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A mixture even for the same thing.

E.g. Miles, 1k, 0.5 miles, 500 metres then continue in metric. Unless measuring a room when I'd probably default to feet, unless it's height which I'd do in metres. A persons height is always in feet though.

However some things are purely metric. E.g temp.

It's a bit bonkers when you stop and think about it.


Edited by waterwonder on Wednesday 1st October 22:57

redtwin

7,518 posts

181 months

Wednesday 1st October 2014
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Imperial...ish as I am used to US gallons and quarts. I have to say I feel quite proud of myself for getting my head about kilos though (multiply by two and add 10%), but the rest of it, especially length is lost on me.

I have both an Imperial and a metric tape measure and I always reach for the imperial even though it means I have to convert the measurement to metric at some point. The metric one just doesn't seem right mostly because I can't think in "mm"s.

Otispunkmeyer

12,557 posts

154 months

Wednesday 1st October 2014
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Both, though not really old enough to have been brought up with all imperial. Being an engineer as well means great exposure to everything being in metric and in scientific form ( ie millimetres, metres, kilometres.. No centimetres.). But then I like to give decent length measurement in feet and inches. Quite happy to deal in torque in both Nm and lbs-ft, power in kW or horse power, temp in centigrade, Fahrenheit, kelvin or rankine. I quite like dealing with a mish mash of units, certainly helps when working with the yanks sometimes.

AC43

11,435 posts

207 months

Wednesday 1st October 2014
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I'm 50 and imperial all the way.

Have done up a series of houses and it's a PITA.

The builders tell me something is 18mm or 1850mm it means nothing, tbh, and I have to mentally cross-calculate all the time.

PITA the arse for them too, right enough.




RobinBanks

17,540 posts

178 months

Wednesday 1st October 2014
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I can mostly switch between them quite easily. I only become annoyed when foreign people ask why we use imperial measurements.

Is it hard to understand that people from a certain country would use a system of that country?

Asterix

24,438 posts

227 months

Wednesday 1st October 2014
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Are we talking BSW or BSF or metric pitch..?

I was an Army mechanic and it could get challenging depending on which era vehicle I was working with.

kev b

2,708 posts

165 months

Wednesday 1st October 2014
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I am in my fifties and think in, use and understand both sets of units, I can still convert to shillings and pence if needed.

I think in miles, stones, gallons and valve clearance in thou' whilst measuring small amounts in grammes, cc and microns.

This is partly due to my micrometers etc being imperial and my eye being trained to estimate 15 and 25 thou gaps on plugs and points. I now do torque in Metric because my newer wrenches are metric but I only think engine hp/torque in imperial because I know what that feels like.

One place I worked all the machinery and tooling was old and everything was in inches, then I moved to a totally metric factory. I can remember when Ford changed over to metric parts resulting in older Escorts using imperial and the next model year being metric.

When I think about it I have seen the move from Imperial Whitworth/BSF/BA to SAE UNC/UNF then on to Metric, makes me realise how old I am.


davepoth

29,395 posts

198 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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I've had the good (bad) luck to work in the paint industry (US factory sold in gallons, French subsidiary wanted to buy in KG. That was fun) and the paper industry (The US uses a system of paper weights so complex that even someone who was a paper purchasing specialist of 20 years' experience couldn't tell me how it worked) so I've had to get to
be a bit handy with doing the conversions; I can work with any measurement. I think it's a bit like being bilingual - it helps you with both languages.


eldar

21,614 posts

195 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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I went to school in the 1960s, and was taught both imperial and metric, supposedly because metric was replacing the old fashioned imperial.

So, happy with either, but almost entirely metric. Useful for quizzes...

Except babies, which mostly born imperial it seems, and MPH and MPG.

leglessAlex

5,384 posts

140 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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Almost everything for me is metric, I think of my height in cm, my weight in kg and distances in meters or km.

The only thing I use the imperial system for is speed and fuel consumption. I can use km/h fairly easily but can't get my head around l/km. If someone told me a car consumes 15L/100km of fuel I wouldn't have a clue whether that's good or bad until I looked it up.

I'm not really sure why the US and UK haven't changed to metric, it's so much easier and straightforward.

Fishtigua

9,786 posts

194 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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I work mostly on American products, and for years with American clients. Like others have said I think in Imperial and UNC/UNF as well as BSW/BSF and Metric. I don't use stone anymore, thinking in pounds or kg.

75% Imperial
25% Metric

s p a c e m a n

10,752 posts

147 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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Height = Imperial
Length = Metric
Weight = Imperial
Volume = Metric

wobble

wibble cb

3,586 posts

206 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
quotequote all
1m= 3ft 10 cm....... wink

We have metric here on Canada, but I prefer imperial, speed/distance is in KM. even now after 9 years here, miles seem more appropriate.

Having said that,, we have pints in the pub, but milk and petrol come in litres and when I bought the tiles for my bathroom gut, they were 3x6 inch subway tile....

I alway say I am 12stone in weight, most here have no idea what that means, they use metric lbs (???)


jeff m2

2,060 posts

150 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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I've changed countries a few times so have had to adapt.

Imperial for breasts and beer.

So yes, I think in inches and ouncessmile


motorizer

1,498 posts

170 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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Both, I'm a toolmaker, and some of the drawings we get have a mix of metric and imperial dimensions, keeps you on your toes it does.

DickyC

49,543 posts

197 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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Metric at work in a design office, Imperial at home. I find Imperial so much more convenient for DIY. Splitting dimensions for setting out is so much easier if you can use feet, inches and fractions of an inch; it's almost instinctive.

Mrs C has a novel approach. She measured curtains top to bottom as two metres ten inches. It worked. She made the curtains and they are fine. And, yes, if you could bear to do it, they do measure two metres ten inches.

Triumph Man

8,670 posts

167 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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Metric at work (due to my job) although builders will still talk in imperial, so I might get a phone call about 6" x 2" for example.

eltax91

9,842 posts

205 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
quotequote all
Paul_M3 said:
I'm 35, and I guess I mainly think in Metric.

Part of that probably comes from being an Engineer, so I work in Metres, Kilograms etc.

However, it does depend on what you're talking about.

If somebody asked me how tall I was I'd say 6ft.
If they asked me my weight, I'd tell them in stones or pounds.

I think in miles buts that's understandable because all of our signs are in miles, etc.

If somebody asked me the fuel tank capacity of my car I'd tell them in litres, but I work out my fuel consumption in MPG as it instantly means something to me. A figure in litres/km would be meaningless until I'd converted it.

I imagine most people my age are quite similar.
I'm 31 and I think in the same way as you on the whole. When I'm doing DIY, I used to measure in MM/CM/M. Then I started getting help from my FiL on DIY jobs. Being a time-served engineer man & boy and in his 60's, he's fully conversant in:-

Feet & Inches
Thous
Microns
Metres & CentiMetres & MilliMetres

I now have to convert CM in my head to Inches when doing DIY as he says "builders work in inches" and in his world of Microns, "an inch is as good as a mile" hehe

Edited by eltax91 on Thursday 2nd October 08:23