This cartoon is very appropriate, because just last night I read Cathy@Still Waters post about the arrival of winter. She says the lows have been slightly above zero, and I thought, “That must be in Celsius, not Fahrenheit.”
It was a good guess because the U.S. is the only industrialized country that uses Fahrenheit as its predominant system of measurement. Our Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 to increase our use of the metric system but made it voluntary. Apparently they figured with increasing globalization the conversion would make sense and people would eventually switch. Let’s just say that 43 years later it hasn’t happened that much yet.
For travelers the internet can help a lot.
Many online sources are now offering “dual” unit options, which offer temperature information in both Fahrenheit and Celsius. This is one way to help people familiarize themselves with the metric system because they are able to directly compare Celsius to the customary temperature scale used in the United States.
These dual unit options have been increasing in popularity, specifically in sites that deal with travel and tourism. It is important that American citizens are able to understand the weather conditions in other countries that they are traveling to that use the Celsius scale.
—Fahrenheit Versus Celsius: Why the US Hasn’t Converted
Pig could learn a lesson from that last paragraph!
that’s a mean rat. 🙂
but then the traveler could do his own homework. 🙂
wow. two smiley faces. I must have thought I was very funny.
or else one is Fahrenheit and the other is Celsius.
Pig will indeed be a much more sophisticated traveler when he gets back. 😀
I’ve got a friend who has lived here a goodly % of bit life but he still tells me what something is in F and also in stone/lb – non of which make much sense to me…
At one point he didn’t have weighing scales, and he would come here…he would alter the switch at the back – and when I next weighed I would get such a shock as he didn’t alter it back to “kg”
metric measurements are my undoing, I kind of have a feel for how long is 12″ or even 36″ rather than whatever it is in metric…
But fortunately the Net has conversion sites available…
Yes, bless the internet for some conversions. Before the internet I had no clue how much a “stone” was. (I just looked it up and it’s 14 pounds.)
And 1kg is 2.2lbs 🙂
65kgs sounds so much ‘lighter’ than 143 pounds 🙂
When we arrived in Australia (1972) metric measurements were still being used side by side with imperial then slowly the imperial was phased out. Although I believe some tradies still refer to measurements in ft & ins. 4b2 comes to mind.
All I remember about imperial temps is that above 75f is nice and warm 🙂
Not sure why there are question marks where there should be smileys lol
I changed the question marks back to smileys. It sounds as if your gradual transition worked better than ours did here in the states. 🙂 Apparently our law about the transition was too lenient:
I’m very familiar now with what 10, 15, 20 or 25C mean in terms of warmth or cold, but Jenny still has trouble with the conversion. It’s going to be 15 today, I say, and she immediately says, So what’s that in fahrenheit?
I’ll probably start teaching myself to think in terms of Celsius as well as Fahrenheit — thanks to having non-US readers!
It is not only in temperature that the USA is out of synch. Gallons and pints, miles, feet and yards, pounds and ounces etc are all non metric units not in use in the rest of the world.
I know, but at least we don’t use stone as a unit of weight, which apparently they do in Great Britain and Ireland, and also Australia (?). It seems to me you once used that unit or am I mistaken?