As an American, I finally relented and purchased a Metric measuring tape after the ordeal of trying to measure the dimensions of the rooms in my house. When it comes to interior decorating, trying to figure out how to evenly space items that are sized in feet, inches, and fractional inches is a nightmare. Imagine trying to space objects 2 feet 7½ inches long against a wall that is 13 feet 2 inches long. Now imagine this task with 80 centimeter long objects and a ~400 centimeter wall.
I am angry that IKEA's localization does not allow Americans to view dimensions in metric site-wide. You can still see dimensions in metric but those only appear on the pictures of some items. The webpage still converts all textual measurements to Imperial. You can't sort and search using metric values. IKEA designs everything in metric, using nice, even, whole numbers. Please let me see those. Seeing them converted to the nearest 32nd of an inch feels like vandalism.
Imagine trying to space objects 2 feet 7½ inches long against a wall that is 13 feet 2 inches long. Now imagine this task with 80 centimeter long objects and a ~400 centimeter wall.
You've made an artificially hard example (Ikea doesn't separate units, it is just inches).
What's harder, a 24" object on a 160" wall, or a 59cm object on a 4m 3cm wall?
Or to compare like for like (rounding & unified units), a 24" object on a 160" wall vs a 60cm object on a 400cm wall? Seems the same.
That's part of the point, though. Ikea might not do separate units, but this is not an uncommon practice elsewhere. In the metric example I don't need rounding because I can trivially see 4m 3cm and know it's 403cm. With inches I'd have to do multiplication to handle mixed units.
I don’t understand why American things absolutely never have dual measurements. I’ve been reading books on pregnancy and newborns written in the US but available across the world and every table is in only US units
As a Frenchman living in the US, my favorite Imperial units are the hand (3 hands to a foot) and the poppyseed (4 poppyseeds to a barleycorn, the shoe-size unit; 3 barleycorns to an inch). 10cm and 2mm.
People stop asking me to convert to Imperial pretty quick.
Save your sanity, don't bother learning the conversion factors. Did you know that most of us don't even know how to convert between our own units? I invite you to go around and ask 'how many pints are in a gallon?'.
It took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize that there are four quarts in a gallon...
I have no such trouble with any SI unit. So with that, I will leave you with this!
"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: 'The French were right again!'"
Even before real school started, I think many of us in Europe played with base ten blocks. As far as I know they are always centimetre-sized, so the 1000-cube is a litre.
The US uses the US customary system, not Imperial. [0] US customary and Imperial share some units, and, confusingly, share even more unit names, but they are different systems.
[0] well, really, it uses metric with a redefined version of the old US customary system layered over it to prevent people from noticing, but...
I am 100% convinced that the baby weight thing is because grandparents love to compare newborns with their own experiences, and they were on the cusp of the metric conversion in the 60s.
In a decade or two, this will vanish.
Imperial height is because 6 feet is the generic height of a "tall person" - we get so much of our sporting news from overseas and no one bothers to convert it.
I know that, but Americans don't and ask for "Imperial". No one has ever asked me for "US customary". Either way, I am using those units to be facetious more than compliant ;-)
In practice the volume units are a much bigger problem. I have not hit anyone with the "cubic hand" yet...
In 1776 everyone was still using the Winchester System.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_measure The UK didn't adopt the Imperial system until 1824-1826. Us Yanks have to suffer the indignity of our meager 473 mililitre pints.
Also, the US doesn't use imperial, dammit. It uses US customary units. They're related but different systems with radically different definitions on many units.
I am angry that IKEA's localization does not allow Americans to view dimensions in metric site-wide. You can still see dimensions in metric but those only appear on the pictures of some items. The webpage still converts all textual measurements to Imperial. You can't sort and search using metric values. IKEA designs everything in metric, using nice, even, whole numbers. Please let me see those. Seeing them converted to the nearest 32nd of an inch feels like vandalism.